Torn (BlackoutxOC fic)
by ReiNyx
Summary: When Hazel's brother is killed in Afghanistan, something doesn't seem right. In a desperate attempt to find answers, Hazel heads to Qatar. But when her brother's old copter comes alive and kidnaps her, throwing her headfirst into an intergalactic war, well, let's just say things are about to get interesting. Especially when she chooses evil over good. T for violence REPOST
1. Chapter 1

"Momma! Momma!" A young girl cried out, a river of tears gushing down her face.  
"Look what Jason did to me!" She shrieked. The girl looked to be about five years old, and was a spitting image of her mother, who was standing beside her.

A boy, who looked around nine, ran around the side of the house towards her. "Mom!" He cried before sighing exasperated, "I didn't do nothing wrong. Hazel's fibbing again."

"What!? No," Hazel shrieked, glaring at him angrily. "He lies, Momma, lies!"

Rose didn't respond, instead, she silently walked away, ignoring her children's cries.  
"Mom?" The young boy called, but he didn't receive an answer.

"Come," She breathed, and like the obedient children they were, they followed her.  
She sat them down so that they were tucked under her arms. She leaned against a tree, beginning to whistle softly. She rubbed soothing circles in both of her children's heads.

 _"Are you, are you, coming to the tree? They strung up a man, they say who murdered three,"_ She sang softly. Hazel's cries slowly quieted as her mother continued to sing. Hazel felt her eyes slide shut...

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

"Oi you, wake up. We're here," A rough voice demanded. My eyes instantly snapped open in surprise. For a few moments, I was extremely disoriented, before I remembered where I was. Shaking the last bit of sleep from my eyes, I sighed softly, knowing that would probably be the last drop of sleep that I would be getting in a while.

I leaned my head back against the cool metal of the inside of the cargo hold. I felt the coolness oddly comforting. The continuous, loud hum of the engine was like a sickly sweet lullaby. But instead of lulling me asleep, it urged me to stay awake. Every few moments, the serenity of the plane would be disturbed by shaking turbulence, but it would always pass as quick as it had came. It always returned to the same, comforting peace.

"Where ya headed?" Another voice grit out from the other side of the hold. I glanced over towards them, even though I couldn't see them. The only thing illuminating the entire hold was one, rickety, old lightbulb that just happened to be situated above my head. Even then, it was hardly bright enough to keep me awake.

"Qatar, you?" I responded, trying to strike up conversation. There was a pregnant pause before he answered. He was obviously trying to choose his words carefully.

This was probably because I was on a plane filled with people who have done many horrible things. The only reason why I had chosen to take this flight was because it was cheap, and also because I could get into the country undetected, just like everybody else on this plane was trying to do.

"Saudi Arabia. You headed for the near or the far side?" He finally replied, and I narrowed my eyes at where I heard his voice coming from. I didn't really feel comfortable telling him, especially since I couldn't even see him. Thankfully, one of the overseers recognized this.

"You, with the questions, shut up," He snapped, a hint of hostility in his tone. Immediately, the man fell silent. The entire hold did, aside from the whimpers of a small child from towards the front end.

I could tell there were quite a few people on this plane. I had heard most of them cry, cough, sneeze and mutter throughout the flight. Thankfully, my time on this jet was almost over. It was difficult to be sandwiched next to two extremely sweaty and hot people for as long as I had.

I was glad that I wasn't the poor, terrified woman sitting to the right of me, however. Earlier on in the flight, the woman had alerted me to the fact that the old man sitting next to her had bled to death all over her. The overseers didn't even care. They told her to stop her whining and to put up with it. The woman was mortified, and I had to whisper soothing words to her until she fell asleep.

Just like my mother used to when Jason or I were sad.

I heard the sound of the landing gears going down, and I stretched my legs out. I knew that soon, I would be running to catch the first van out of here and into Qatar. Part way through the flight, the overseers had informed us of what was going to happen.

We would land secretly in UAE at midnight, before quickly being shoved into vans and carted to our destinations, hopefully before being discovered. The first vans to leave were the most likely to get through safely. And, there were only a limited number of vans going. Not nearly enough for the amount of people on this plane.

We hit the runway hard, and we were thrown upwards slightly. Thankfully, I managed to hold on, but the woman next to me screamed as the body beside her landed on her lap. She continued to scream as the plane slowed down, only shutting up when one of the overseers smacked her. I grimaced, feeling my anger beginning to boil.

"Are you stupid, woman? You'll get us discovered!" He spat, before turning and walking away. I glared darkly at his back as he continued to walk, before turning to the woman beside me. She was cradling her now bright red cheek.

"Shh now, it's alright," I cooed, hugging her softly. She cried softly as the plane taxied slowly down the runway. I realized that we were probably heading into a hangar of sorts.

"T-Thank you." She cried, and I rubbed her hair soothingly. "My name is Tahzir. I am headed for Qatar also." She whispered. I leaned down so that my mouth was close to her ear.

"I'm Hazel. Now listen to me, when we get off this plane, I want you to grab my hand and not let go. We have to get to the van first, okay?" I whispered, and I felt her nod.  
The plane lurched to a squeaky stop. I leapt up immediately, dragging Tahzir to her feet as well.

The cargo door fell open, and everybody surged forward, trying to get to the vans. I desperately clung on to Tahzir's hand as the crowd pushed us further away from the plane. At the last minute, her hand slipped from my grasp, but it was already too late for me to go back.

"Hazel!" She screamed, but I couldn't get to her. I was trapped in a sea of people.  
"Head forward Tahzir! Keep coming." I yelled, hoping that she would hear me. My heart sunk, I prayed that she would get to the vans. Before I even had a chance to think about it, I found myself on a van. I let out the breath I hadn't realized I had been holding.

"The vans are full! Too late! Go back." An overseer yelled, forcing the crowd back. I glanced out the window as the van started, its engine barely spluttering to life. As we began to drive away, my heart lurched.

For there, standing on the edge of the curb, was a sobbing Tahzir. My eyes wrenched themselves from her figure and focused themselves to the outside, allowing my mind to wander.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

Hazel was cold. She was wet and she was tired. This was not how she was planning to spend her eighteenth birthday. Jason smiled sadly down at her, causing tears to pool in her eyes.

"Why are you leaving me?" Hazel cried, not being able to hold her tears back any longer. Jason's bulky body covered her smaller frame in a hug.

"Everybody's gotta do something with their life, Haze. This is mine. I wanna protect our country. I've got a reason to fight." Twenty-three year old Jason explained.

"A reason to fight?" Hazel squeaked, half in anger and half in pain. Jason nodded, still holding her tight.

"To keep you safe." He murmured, causing Hazel's heart to swell. And for her to bawl even harder. He quieted her, trying desperately to soothe her.

"Do you remember Mom's lullaby?" He asked, causing her to nod. "Can you sing it for me Haze?" She took a deep breath.

 _'Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be. If we met at midnight, in the hanging tree.'_

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

"Hey Miss, are you alright?" A small voice called, causing me to snap out of it. I glanced upwards, only to meet the eyes of a young boy. Slightly dazed, I found myself nodding.  
The boy looked unconvinced, instead asking "Then why are you crying?"

Huh? I thought before bringing a hand to my cheeks. Sure enough, my cheeks were sticky with tears.

"Didn't feel them right? That always happens when I fly. Dad says it's because the air makes my skin go raw, whatever that means," He stated, giving me a wide, toothy grin. I noted how his teeth were yellow, and how a few of them were missing.

"Don't worry, it goes away soon. Or you can rub your hands on your cheek to warm it up like this," He stated, before rubbing his hands vigorously on his cheeks. He nodded slightly, encouraging me to do it. I did. Sure enough, it worked.

"That's better, isn't it? I heard that happens when you fly in a chopper too. Depends on how fast you go and if the doors open or not, I say," He rambled. I froze when he said helicopter. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry. I chanted over and over, squeezing the tears that threatened to spill with my eyelids. It was silent for a moment.

"You look funny when you squint your eyes up like that. Are you scared?" He asked inquisitively. I breathed in.

"Yes, I'm very scared. I've never done this before in my life," I answered truthfully, and he regarded me with innocent eyes. Suddenly, he beamed at me.

"Don't worry Miss, do you wanna know a secret?" He whispered the last part, leaning further over the seat so that he could speak more quietly. I nodded, leaning more forward so that he didn't have to stretch too far over the seat.

"I'm really scared too, but I'm trying to be tough for her," He whispered, before pointing a finger at a snoring baby who was resting in a carrier. He's a big brother, I realized, causing my heart to lurch for the third time that night. I saw how proud of his status he was, it was just like how Jason used to be with me.

Stop thinking about it, Hazel! I chastised myself, shaking the thought away as fast as it had come.

"My Mom used to sing me a lullaby when I was scared," I told him, before asking if he would like for me to sing it to him. He nodded eagerly, settling in his seat. I leaned forward, close to the window, before starting.

 _'Are you, are you, coming to the tree? Where the dead man called out, for his love to flee.'_

Once the boy was sound asleep, earning me a thankful smile from his mother, I allowed my mind to wander back to that fateful day...

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

Hazel flopped down onto the couch with a sigh. She was absolutely knackered. Work had been taking its toll on her, but she had to do the extra hours in order to afford Jason's welcome home party. It would be his first time home in almost a year, and she was super excited to see him again.

Hazel and her older brother were best friends, they always had been. Even if he was five years her senior and loved to annoy the crap out of her, she adored him with all her heart.

Hazel had hated it when he had joined the air force, but he had kept his promise. He skyped her every Friday. Even if it was only for thirty minutes, it was enough to keep them super close.

Jason loved to regale her with stories of his prank-pulling ways, and also introduced her to his flying partner, Royce. They fly a USAF MH-53 Pave Low helicopter together. Hazel even got a tour of it, as Jason practically loved the helicopter like it was his firstborn child. Heck, Jason even called the helicopter a he.

She giggled at that, before going to turn the TV on. Three sharp knocks on the door stopped her in her tracks.

Hazel lazily stood up from the couch, moving towards the door slowly. Another three sharp knocks came from the other side of the door, causing Hazel to quicken her pace. She threw the door open, and horror immediately filled her as she took in the sight before her eyes.

The man came dressed in full military uniform. A variety of medals were attached in a neat line on his chest. His hat wasn't on his head, instead it was in his hand, pressed tightly against his stomach. He held out a small envelope towards her. He opened his mouth to say something before thinking better of it. Instead he nodded once, bowed slightly and left.

Hazel opened the note and began to read it slowly.

 _Miss Brooks_

 _The secretary of the Air Force has asked me to express his deep regret that your brother,_  
 _Airman First Class Jason L. Brooks died in Afghanistan on 17 February 2007, after being shot down by an unknown aircraft in USAF MH-53 Pave Low helicopter 4500X._  
 _Please accept my deepest sympathies._

 _/ ~ / ~ / ~ /_

In that one, simple moment, my entire world had come crashing down. I had no other family beside from him, and he was gone. That was two and a half months ago.  
I spent every, waking second I had trying to find answers.

Why did my brother die? Who killed him? How can I save others? Why wasn't anybody else flying with them?

I had just about given up about two weeks ago, until a friend of mine managed to get some encrypted files about the 'accident'. I had read through them, and I was shocked at what I found.

According to the reports, no other aircraft had been reported in the area. No radars detected anything. There had been nothing, aside from a last minute transmission from my brother. A really, really long transmission too. It had been three minutes in length.  
I had desperately tried to find it, but I couldn't source it anywhere. Until my friend traced the files back to the original source.

That's how I ended up in Qatar. The military base in Qatar has a huge network of files in it. Every single file relating towards the accident and my brother are kept there. Now, all I need to do, is figure out a way to get access to that computer. Then I will finally have the answers that I needed.

Sighing, I leaned back and placed a hand on my forehead, breathing in deeply. I turned my full attention to the sunrise, trying not to think about what might happen next.

 _'Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be. If we met at midnight, in the hanging tree.'_

* * *

Reposting cause all of my stories got deleted! URGHH

Some things you need to know 3

~ BLACKOUT x OC STORY. 

~ OC CENTRIC

~REASONABLE AMOUNTS OF AUTOBOT BASHING

~SOME STUFF WONT BE CANON

~SOME CHARACTERS MAY BE OOC


	2. Chapter 2

"Here, I brought you some water." A familiar, yet kind voice called from above me before a large water canister was dropped in front of me. I chuckled gratefully, before guzzling down some of the water, the coolness of it soothing my parched throat.

"Woah, take it easy Squirt. You don't wanna make yourself sick, do ya?" Another familiar voice laughed, although he sounded slightly further away.

"Will! Epps!" I shrieked, laughing as Epps swooped in to tickle me. I had only been at this base four weeks, and we had already become fast friends. We just got each others sense of humor.

After I had gotten nearer to the base, I had walked around for three days, getting myself really dehydrated. It was so worth it though, because the entire base accepted me without even batting an eyelid. As far as they were concerned, an eighteen year old girl was hardly a threat.

They also thought my name was Ashley, and didn't know that my birthday was actually in two weeks, not four months. But hey, the details didn't matter too much, did they?

It wasn't like they were going to find out the truth anytime soon.

"It's so hot," A young boy, Mahfouz, moaned from beside me. Will ruffled his hair playfully, causing Mahfouz to stick out his tongue. I had to agree with him there, I was sweating like a pig. It was always really hot on the base though. The sun rose ridiculously early, and always set ridiculously late. It had been an absolute nightmare to get used to at first.

It was silent for a few moments, before a look of pure excitement crossed Will's features. I quirked an eyebrow up at him, whilst Mahfouz paused mid drink. "We're leaving this damn base soon," He stated in realization, causing me to smile up at him.

"Correction, you are leaving the base soon," I teased, winking at him. A look of sadness crossed his eyes, but I didn't dwell on it. I was sad that these guys would soon be leaving me, but it just made it all the more easier for me to achieve my goal of getting into the computer to steal those files.

"Hey little lady, I do believe I'm leaving the base soon too. You gonna miss me as well or is that all reserved for William over here?" He questioned, pretending to be offended. Everybody chuckled together, and I snaked an arm around Will's neck.

"Yeah but Epps, at least Will's face is gonna be missed. I mean, damn, look at it. It's like, like a piece of art." I cooed, extremely dramatically. Will laughed before picking at some soggy cheese from his pack. He didn't hesitate as he smushed it into my hair, causing Epps to roar with laughter.

"Wow, little lady ain't lookin' like such a lady anymore." He quipped, causing another wave of laughter to befall the group.

It was silent for a moment before Figueroa spoke, "Oh God, five more months of this. I can't wait to get a little taste of home. A plate of mama's alligators étouffée... Mmm."

"You've been talking about barbecued 'gators and crickets for the last two weeks. I'm never going to your mama's house, Fig. I promise," Epps cried, slightly horrified. I had to agree with him. Figueroa's mama had the habit of cooking up the weirdest concoctions known to man.

"But Bobby, Bobby-" Figueroa started, before Epps held up his hand.

"I ain't never going to your mama's house."

After that, Mahfouz and I struck up our own conversation, only stopping when Donelly started talking about his perfect weekend. Suddenly, Epps rounded on me.

"How about you, Ash. What's your perfect weekend?" The others leaned forward, eagerly awaiting my answer. I scoffed, before taking a moment to think about it.

"Me and my brother used to order a large pepperoni pizza from the pizzeria across the way. Then we'd spend the afternoon watching countless horror films and sci-fi flicks. After that, we'd drive out to the nearest 7/11 and buy ourselves slurpees and sit in the park until two AM. Just chatting and stargazing. Now that was the perfect life. What about you, Captain? You got a perfect day?

Will's eyes snapped up at the sound of his name being mentioned, before a cheesy smile flitted onto his face. "Nah, I just can't wait to hold my baby girl for the first time."

A series of awes erupted from around the group. He blushed slightly, causing me to laugh at him. "He's adorable," Donnelly stated, earning himself one of Will's infamous glare downs.

"That's too-" Epps started, but Will quickly cut him off with a sharp 'shut up'. His face as red as a tomato.

"Aww, is li'l Will blushin'," I teased, earning myself a glare. I merely flipped him the bird before turning around. I came face to face with a messenger, who sent both Will and I uneasy looks. I tapped Will, who turned to face the messenger also, rolling his eyes as he realised what he wanted.

"Later boys," I cooed. The only replies I received were wolf whistles.

The radar tent was always packed with people. It always amazed me at how many people could cram themselves and their computers in there, desperately trying to get the best wifi connection. I glanced over at Will, smiling as I saw him fiddling with his webcam. He was about to skype his girls, I could just tell.

I made my way over to Sharp, who wasn't really doing much, to be honest. I could tell that it had been a slow day, with nothing but paperwork to keep him busy. I smiled at him, and he gave me a half grimace back.

"Rough day huh?" I asked politely.

"Like you'll never believe," He bit back, sending me a sheepish smile. I didn't really care for his attitude. I only spoke to him in order to suss out who had access to the main hard drive system and who didn't.

"Colonel Sharp, we have an inbound unidentified infiltrator, 10 miles out." A radar officer beside me called out, glancing up at Sharp worriedly. He immediately headed for the officers radar, and seemed to take a moment to read the information. A grim expression set on his face as he reached for the phone.

"Unidentified aircraft, you are in restricted US military airspace. Squawk ident and proceed east out of the area. Raptors one and two, snap to heading two-five-zero to intercept. Bogie is in the weeds ten miles out, not squawking. Unidentified aircraft, we will escort you to US SOCCENT airbase. If you do not comply, we will use deadly force." Sharp commanded seriously. I felt myself take a big intake of breath.

Somehow, I just knew that shit was about to go down.

Sharp held the phone to his ear before nodding. He turned to a different officer and said "Forty-five hundred X-ray is on the tail." The officer visibly paled, and I felt my blood begin to go cold as well.

"Sir, says here 4500 X was shot down three months ago. Afghanistan," The officer stated slowly, causing every pair of eyes in the room to turn to him. I felt my heart stop.

That's not possible. There is no way. Jason is dead, they had confirmed it and everything. There is no way on planet earth that that is my brothers copter. But the tail code is exactly the same. I could feel myself start to hyperventilate.

Does this mean that Jason...is alive?

"That's got to be a mistake. Check again, then recheck," Sharp snapped. He had gone as white as a sheet. His eyes connected with mine quickly, and they widened when he saw the pure panic in my own gaze. Breathe in and out, Hazel. In, and out.

"I did, sir. A friend of mine was on that chopper," He breathed, amazed at what was happening. My head snapped to him.

"Who?" I bit out. The officer looked at me appalled. I knew that I was way out of line, but I had to know who. What is this guy knew...knows my brother.

"Royce. His name was Royce." I gulped at his response. Fighting back tears.

"My brother was on that chopper," I murmured. The entire room stopped. Will's eyes snapped up to me and widened in realization. Sharp just looked absolutely gobsmacked and the other officers looked very fearful. "So trust me when I say, there has to have been a mistake," Sharp nodded, before clicking on the broadcaster. We all held our breath.

"Unidentified aircraft, we will escort you to US SOCCENT airbase," Sharp commanded, although not nearly as strong as he had done before. The air was tense. I could vaguely make out Will's voice in the background, talking to his daughter. Well, more like fussing over her.

Ten minutes later, I slip outside of the tent, making my way towards the pad. I hide myself cautiously behind one of the nearby choppers, watching as more and more armed gunmen arrive. This entire situation was just insane.

But I couldn't help the fact that my hopes were getting raised. They had never given me my brothers' remains, so maybe there was a chance that there had been a mistake. Maybe he was with Royce on that chopper. Maybe they were both safe. The familiar sound of chopper blades tore me from my thoughts.

As it slowly made its way toward the ground, I spotted a weird symbol on the side of it. My blood began to freeze again. I immediately knew something was off about this chopper.

"That's not an ordinary chopper," I stated aloud. "What the hell is that? Because that ain't no chopper!" I shrieked before bolting from behind the helicopter. I ran as fast as I could, before hiding behind a plane. I peeped around the tail of the plane.

"Forty-five hundred X, something's not right," The loudspeaker crackled, but it was softer now. You could tell, just by looking around, that everybody was holding their breath. The only sound you could hear were the sounds of the chopper's blades rotating, slicing the air like a knife. Shivers made their way down my spine, causing me to gulp quietly.

"MH-53 pilot, power down now. Have your crew step out or we will kill you," Sharp tried again, but to no avail. A bead of sweat ran down my neck, nestling at the top of my shirt.

"Hold your fire, stand by to engage!" A soldier called from the firing squad. I stared right at the chopper, and I swear it was staring right back at me. I couldn't describe it, but I could just tell. There was something...evil about that helicopter. Completely and utterly evil.

Suddenly, a familiar voice pierced the air, "They bombed the antenna farm! We're under attack!" Epps? I wondered, trying to pinpoint where he was. He was close to me. In between me, and the copter. My searching was interrupted however, when this horrible, electronic screeching and rumbling started.

I looked towards the chopper and my mouth fell agape. It was transforming. My brother's helicopter was transforming. And as it was transforming, it started to spawn legs.

"RUN!" I screamed, and suddenly the base was alive with movement. People began running everywhere, trying to desperately to get away from the giant robot standing in the middle of the helicopter pad. Spotting Epps, Lennox and Mahfouz, I started bolting towards them, trying to move as fast as possible.

"It's after the files, cut the hard lines!" I heard Sharp shout to an officer who was desperately trying to unlock the security building for the server. The robot man had already ripped off the roof, and was happily stealing every last piece of information from that hard drive.

"Here, come here! Come here!" Lennox called to us, dragging Mahfouz behind him as he squealed. The robot started to make weird noises, almost as if it were talking in a different language. Shouts filled the air of terrified soldiers as they fled from the area. I watched in horror as the helicopter/man/thing started blowing up anything and everything in its sight, obviously finished with whatever it was trying to accomplish in the first place.

"No!" Epps yelled as a giant foot landed in front of him. I screamed bloody murder as well, forcing myself to slow. I hid myself in between two planes just behind the monster, and watched on in pure horror as it stood over Epps. It looked almost curious.

It started to click at Epps.

"What the f-" Epps started, before it cut him off again. Epps quickly pulled out his phone, taking a few pictures of the monster. The monster stared at Epps, seemingly appalled. Then its cannon fired up, pointing directly at Epps.

"Epps, NO!" I shouted, successfully attracting the monsters attention. However, I didn't need too.

I think I saw the missile before it did. The missile took the monster by surprise. It jerked him sideways, causing him to trip over the plane that was hiding me from view. I didn't even stand a chance when a large piece of burning metal slammed into my side.

I was consumed by raw, blinding agony. A rippled scream tore through my throat, but it was as if no one heard it.

"Epps, let's go!" I heard Lennox shout as the monster continued to shoot things. I could hear explosions all around me, the ground was shaking violently with every new hit. But that wasn't even the worst sound.

The worst sound by far was the dying screams of the soldiers. I could hear their agony filled cries as their lives were slowly snuffed out by a psychotic, raging helicopter dude.

The pain slowly became unbearable as the sheet became hotter and hotter, embedding deeper into my side. It had me pinned good. Breathing became more difficult and I could feel the bile rising in my throat.

Just as I thought my lungs were about to give out, the pressure holding my body down was gone. I looked up as my eyes started to regain focus. At first, I was thankful. The pain wasn't as nearly as bad. The wind must've blown the sheet of metal off me or something.

That thankfulness was short lived however, as instead of seeing the night sky when I looked up, I saw a set of piercing, red eyes. If you could even call them that. I tried to scream as it reached for me, but I just didn't have the energy too.

I vaguely recall its hand wrapping around my body, but by that point, I was so out of it that I couldn't even remember my own name.


	3. Chapter 3

**'I hope the puny fleshlings didn't give you too much trouble, Blackout.'** Starscream muttered over the comm link. Blackout didn't even blink. He was used to his temporary leader's dry sense of humor.

 **'They just made a lot of racket and ran around with no real direction.'** Blackout bit back, causing Starscream to snort.

 **'Fleshlings are so stupid, aren't they? Did you get the files we need?'** Starscream growled out. Blackout huffed slightly, not liking his leaders obvious lack of trust.

 **'Of course. You say that like you expected me to fail.'** He mused.

' **I did.** ' Starscream responded dryly. Blackout couldn't be bothered to think of a response. The femme fleshling he had forced into the back emitted a groan, causing Blackout to jump slightly. Blackout narrowed his eyes at it. He couldn't even remember why he had picked it up in the first place. He usually had no interest in keeping a pet.

 **'SCOUT!'** Starscream suddenly barked.

 **'Lord Starscream.'** Barricade murmured sarcastically. It was obvious to everyone, aside from Starscream himself, that Barricade had no respect for him at all. Another groan emitted from the femme fleshling, causing an irritated Blackout to scan her.

 **'Give Blackout the coordinates to the base you have found for us. Then, find Ladiesman217. Do not fail me, Barricade.'** Starscream commanded. Barricade barely grunted in response. A brief moment of silence passed between them as Blackout received the coordinates. He then adjusted his course, headed towards the abandoned airfield that would soon be their base.

 **'Blackout, head to the base. Skorponok will rendezvous with you there. That is all.'** Starscream bit out.

 **'Sure thing, Screamer.'** Blackout responded, terminating the link before Starscream could blow up at him. He glanced at the scans of the femme fleshling, which showed that she had sustained an injury known as burn on the left side of her torso. It wasn't going to offline her, so Blackout didn't bother to worry. Blackout welcomed the peaceful silence willingly, allowing himself to find a few moments of enjoyment from it.

However, his peace was short-lived because suddenly, the femme fleshling shot up, awake. And then, she started screaming.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

The sound of a chopper was what lulled me from my sleep.

I shot up, extremely confused. Why the hell was I in a chopper? I glanced around the familiar interior. It was an interior that I could recognise anywhere, causing my heart to jump into my throat. I wasn't just in any helicopter, I was in my brother's.

At that moment, the events of the day before all came rushing back to me. My stomach lurched when I remembered that the chopper had turned into a giant, robot man. Even more so when I remembered that it had grabbed me.

Holy mother of pancakes, I realised, I'm in that thing right now!

It was at that very moment that a searing pain ran up the left side of my leg. It travelled up my entire torso and down my arm, ending just under my ear. It burned. It felt like I had been set on fire. I started to scream.

"Be quiet, fleshling! Your meticulous racket is driving my processors insane," An ominous voice spat darkly. My voice cut out immediately, and I cowered against the seat above me.

"Sorry," I squeaked, pulling myself up from the floor. I went to touch the leather, but I was stopped.

"Don't touch me!" It roared, and I felt myself squeak. Tears pooled in my eyes, but I willed them not to spill. I was stronger than this, so much stronger than this. I didn't want it to know I was scared.

"Who are you?" I asked, sounding more timid than I was hoping for. I was met with silence. A few more awkward seconds passed and I sighed painfully, resting my head against the seat.

"It doesn't matter, fleshling," It barked, before making a sound that reminded me of a sigh.

"My designation, fleshling, is Blackout."

I groaned painfully, pulling at my shirt that had seemingly attached itself to my burning side.

"You have sustained a 'burn'. How?" Blackout snarled, causing me to cower slightly against my will. I knew immediately that Blackout had noticed, as you could practically sense the pride that was oozing from him. I growled at myself quietly. Stupid, stupid Hazel.

"From the explosion," I quipped. I didn't really want to answer him. There was a few seconds of silence, before he transformed in mid-air. A shocked shriek escaped my lips as I started to free fall.

Suddenly, a large, metal hand clasped around my falling form. I latched onto what seemed like a finger as we fell. Blackout's feet impacting the ground created a loud 'boom', and pillows of dust were sent flying into the air. The dust clogged my airways, causing me to cough and splutter. Seconds later, I found myself standing on the ground.

I gazed upward at Blackout, who rolled his shoulders back in pride, extending to his full height. I took the time to take in his appearance.

The shape of his head reminded me of a crab, and it sat low on his shoulders. It made it look like he had no neck. This realization caused me to giggle slightly, pain forcing me to stop almost as soon as I had started. His chest was made up of the front part of the helicopter. He was bulky, with short legs and short arms. One of his hands looked like a crab claw, whereas the other was made up of the helicopters blade.

Something wasn't right with his blade arm. It leaked a bright blue, sweet smelling liquid, which I could only assume was their version of blood. Gasping, I noticed how most of the cables on his arm were severed, with a small piece of jagged metal embedded deep within the wound.

"The explosion-" I gasped, remembering how the missile had struck him in his side, but was rudely cut off.

"Yes fleshling, we don't have all day. Get that metal out of me now, or I'll shoot you." He spat darkly, pointing his cannon towards my face threateningly. I was about to nod and start climbing, when suddenly a thought struck me.

He was the one who had hacked into the computer. He had the files on Jason's crash.

"No," I responded, gritting my teeth nervously.

"What was that, fleshling?" He roared, eyes ablaze as he took another step towards me, causing the ground to vibrate violently.

"I said no," I responded, with less courage this time. "You have something that I want. If you give it to me, I will help you."

The suggestion itself looked like it appalled him.

"You are not in the position to be making demands, fleshling!" Blackout screamed, pointing the cannon right into my face. My eyes widened as I felt the heat of it agitate my burn. It suddenly felt like my entire side was alight again, and I bit my tongue to stop from crying out in pain.

"I know I'm not. But you are in pain. Let me remove the metal, Blackout. Then, give me what I want," I responded, picking my words carefully. His eyes narrowed at me, darkening slightly.

"I will not give you your freedom, if that's what you want, femme!" Blackout bellowed, and I shrank back slightly.

"No, that's not what I want. You hacked the computer, you have the files on what really happened to 4500 X," I explained, and he sighed, pulling the cannon from my face.

"Fine, fleshling. You'll get your files. Just remove the metal!" He roared, and I nodded, rushing forward. Ignoring my body's protests, I climbed up his arm that he rested on the ground. I was careful to avoid the severed cables as I scoured his arm.

When I reached his shoulder, I braced myself, and watched as Blackout tensed himself too. Exhaling, I threw myself forward, careful to avoid the damage as I leaned into his wound. Blackout hissed with pain, and I winced, feeling sympathetic. My hands fastened themselves around the metal, as I pulled softly. It came away almost instantly. Blackout sighed in relief.

"This is gonna hurt," I warned, as I scaled out of his wound. He hissing with pain every time I touched another piece of destroyed metal.

"Hurry up, femme!" He shouted. Squeaking, I climbed vigorously, before finally sliding back down his arm and onto the floor. He stood again, and shook his arm. Smirking to himself, he wiped the blue stuff from the wound, and flicked it towards me. I squeaked as it splashed in front of me, wetting me slightly. Then, he transformed again, and opened his door, beckoning me to climb in again.

"Here, have your files," Blackout spat, before the computer in the cockpit flashed on. I scurried forward, sitting in the co-pilots spot before leaning over.

"You're welcome." I muttered, knowing that he would hear me. He said nothing in response, but I was past the point of caring. I tapped the file on the computer, and gasped when I saw just how many files there were. A lot more then there should be, that was for sure.

I opened the first file, and a video appeared. I watched it silently.

"T-t-there was this big thing! It came out of the sky right beside us. It just appeared, out of nowhere! It stared at us, right into our eyes, it did. And then it shot us! We crashed to the ground, and that was the end of it." A terrified voice cried out.

"Do you know what it was?" The interviewer asked, sounding slightly cocky.

"N-no."

"Well, you're about to find out, Mr Brooks." The interviewer responded, but then the video cut out.

"How?" I breathed, still staring at the screen that was frozen on his face. They told me he was dead. The military had lied. The government lied. The entire thing was one big, fat lie!

I didn't know what the video meant, or what else was in that file.

But I knew one thing for certain, Jason Brooks was alive.


	4. Chapter 4

Blackout was growing increasingly annoyed as he observed the fleshling currently seated in the co-pilots seat. The femme hadn't said anything for almost an hour now, and it was starting to drive him insane.

He didn't really know why it was, in all honesty. Maybe it was because of the pure guts she had when she had bargained with him. Or maybe it was the same thing that had attracted her to him in the first place, his curiosity.

"Speak, femme," He commanded, causing her head to snap up in alarm. Then, she glared at the console, before crossing her arms and breathing in tightly.

"Fine. Where are you taking me?" She asked, her eyes narrow. Blackout paused for a second before answering.

"To my base," He answered dryly. And she nodded, her eyes turning to the window once again.

"What is your designation, femme?" Blackout growled, sounding more harsh than he had wanted to. She sighed before turning to face the console once again. She tapped her foot on the floor impatiently.

"Hazel Brooks," She replied.

"Sibling of Jason Brooks? The co-pilot of 4500X?" Blackout found himself asking. She flinched slightly, looking down at the chair she was sitting on with disgust.

"Yeah, the guy you shot down," She growled.

"The male who lived," He stated with no emotion, causing her to nod.

"Yeah, the man who lived. Why?" She questioned suddenly.

"Why what, fleshling?"

"Why did you let him live?" She asked, causing Blackout to think silently. A pregnant pause later, he sighed.

"I didn't, femme. The fleshlings did. Everything you need to know is in that file. Now enough with the questions," Blackout growled.

"You're the one who started talking in the first place!" She exclaimed, but Blackout didn't respond. Instead, the pilot seat lifted before abruptly falling again, shrugging.

"You're insufferable," She bit out, before apologizing. The apology took Blackout by surprise, but yet again - he did not respond. Decepticons don't usually apologize or show respect, and Blackout didn't feel like starting today.

 **'Blackout.'** Barricade's familiar baritone voice filled the cockpit. The young femmes head snapped towards the radio, her eyes ablaze with confusion. Blackout quickly told the fleshling to be quiet before answering.

 **'What, Barricade.'** Blackout stated coolly, his voice showing no emotion at all.

 **'I found the fleshling. He's with the** autoscum **scout.'** Barricade responded, causing Blackout to sigh.

'That's a hindrance,' Blackout muttered boredly. He really wasn't in the mood to speak right now, even if it was to his favorite comrade.

 **'Exactly. I've decided not to tell Screamer. I won't hear the end of it, the little fragger.'** Blackout made a noise in agreement. The female femmes eyes widened as she heard the conversation unfolding.

 **'Wise idea. And what he doesn't know, won't offline him.'** Blackout said calmly.

 **'Yeah. The autoscum doesn't know I'm here. I'll use that to my advantage. Some scout he is. He's the most unobservant 'bot I know.'** Barricade laughed. **'I reckon they sent him just to get rid of his slaggin' aft.'**

 **'True. Barricade, when you return to base, bring some human supplies.'** Blackout ordered.

 **'Human supplies? Like hydrogen and nutrients?'** Barricade asked, seemingly confused. Blackout started to nod before remembering that Barricade couldn't see him.

 **'Yes, Barricade. Hydrogen and nutrients. Femme cloth and related items are needed too.'** Blackout could feel himself growing increasingly irritated. Barricade's questioning was testing his patience.

 **'Got yourself a pet, have you Blackout?'**

 **'Yes. And it'd be wise of you not to mention it to Screamer.** ' Blackout threatened darkly, knowing that he had blackmail material on Barricade. Not that he would need it, they were extremely close for decepticons. Barricade wouldn't tell Starscream anyway.

 **'Course not. Can I meet it? The pet, I mean?'** Barricade asked, curiosity resonating through his tone. Blackout rolled his optics.

 **'Yes, whatever. That's all, Barricade. I'll contact you again soon.** ' Blackout snapped before terminating the link. He focused on the human femme seating in the pilot seat, and was shocked to find her giving the wheel a death glare.

"I. Am. Not. Your. Pet!" She screamed in rage, causing Blackout to jolt. The femme had scared the daylights out of him! Blackout decided to do the mature thing and glare back at her, even if she couldn't see him.

"As far as my comrades know, you are," He responded dryly. She sighed, slamming against the seat with more force than she needed to. He didn't bother letting her know that it didn't hurt him in the slightest. He didn't really want to deal with a pissed off femme the entire way to the base.

They were still three hours away yet. Maybe he would when they were only five minutes away he would take that risk. Until then, he decided that for the safety of his aft, he would leave it be.

That was when he noticed the human femme was leaking from her face.

At first, Blackout was absolutely disgusted, before he used the internet to find out what it meant. Then he felt a tiny bit bad for her, surprising himself at that thought. He sighed, swallowing his pride.

"What troubles you, fleshling?" He asked, regretting the words the second they flowed from his mouth. However, it was already too late to take them back.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

I could feel the tears streaming down my face and inwardly cursed in embarrassment. Of course, Blackout would notice and would tease her about it. Possibly laughing about the cowardice of the human race in the process. It was not what she wanted to deal with right now. Especially after the whole pet stunt with the other, weird voice that had spoken through Blackout's radio.

"What troubles you, fleshling?" Blackout asked, causing me to reel back in shock. Ok, so that wasn't what I had been expecting at all. I debated on telling him for a few moments.

Fuck it, who else is there to tell? And it's not good to keep things to myself. I tried to shuffle slightly, but the instant pain in my side caused me to stop moving. It continued to burn, causing more tears to drip down my face.

"I've just found out, that my entire life for the past four months, has been a lie," I cried. Then a sob slipped through my mouth, before another quickly followed. I became a bawling mess. Sobbing my heart out for a good five minutes, I finally stopped, having let it all out.

"What do you mean, femme?" Blackout asked, and I took note of how it only ever called me 'fleshling' or 'femme'. And even then, he only called me 'femme' when he was feeling nice.

"I mean, my brother was dead, Blackout. Everybody told me he was dead! The government claimed that he was dead! But now I find out that he's alive. And has been the entire time. Where is he, Blackout. Why didn't he ever come home? Was I not a good enough reason to do so?" I asked, begging for a comforting answer. Blackout seemed to ponder his next few words.

"Look, femme. You're sibling obviously cared deeply for you. I had a picture of you taped to my window after I had scanned the copter he was in. He took it everywhere with him. I could tell from the stains on it. He would've come home if he had been able to," Blackout responded, his deep voice resonating throughout the entire cockpit. His words shocked me to my very core.

"Are you saying that he's being held somewhere?" I asked, the words sounding just as stupid as they did in my head. Blackout hummed in reply.

"Perhaps."

That was the last thing he said to me. I nodded, mulling his words over before my thoughts stopped abruptly.

A giant alien robot had just comforted me.

I whispered a barely inaudible thank you, and Blackout said something in a different language. One that I had never heard before in my life. I took it as a no problem, even though it was probably something else.

Seconds later, the computer screen clicked on, attracting my attention. I leaned forward to get a better view of what Blackout was showing me. It was a fax letter, addressed to the somebody called 'Simmons'.

 _Simmons,_

 _We have decided that it is within our best interests to keep Jason Brooks housed with you until further notice. He has seen too much. We wouldn't want him to go blabbing and getting our toys confiscated, would you?_

 _Don't let Jason Brooks go, and for god damn sake, keep your fucking mouth shut!_

 _K.P.H_

My words found themselves lodged in my throat as I read the fax. My brother was being held hostage by people that go by 'Simmons' and 'K.P.H'. It was insane. This entire thing was insane.

"Where did you get this?" I whispered. It hadn't been in the military file, I don't think. I hadn't seen any faxes stored in it when I had glanced the file over.

"Barricade hacked it from a computer that belongs to a man who is designated as the 'President of the United States of America', whoever that is," Blackout responded brusquely.

"You hacked the President?" I shrieked loudly, causing Blackout to wince.

"Yes. Hardly a feat, even for Barricade," Blackout stated back.

"You could go to jail!" I screeched, before facepalming myself. Blackout was silent for a moment, before a weird noise filled the cockpit. It sounded like laughter.

"I am from Cybertron. No fleshling jail will ever be able to contain me," Blackout laughed arrogantly, causing me to growl softly.

"Go figure, stupid."

He didn't reply after that.

Sometime later...

"This is your new base?" I cried, awestruck. The thing was huge! And in the absolute middle of nowhere. Nobody would be able to find us here, that's for certain. I didn't know how I felt about that. Part of me was terrified, as this just confirmed the fact that I wasn't going to get rescued anytime soon. The other, however, was glad. Really, really glad.

Nobody would be able to find me here, meaning I could start over. Erase who I was and become the person I wished to be.

The idea was tempting, very tempting. But I would never let down Jason like that. Now that I know he's alive, I owe it to him to find him. To free him from his captors and to bring him home.

I was shaken from my thoughts as I heard the familiar sound of a helicopter beginning to land. The landing gears clicked into place with a heavy thunk. A loud whirring noise filled the cabin. I held my breath as we sauntered towards the ground. After a few moments, we finally touched the ground.

I didn't even hesitate, launching myself out of my seat faster than you could say abracadabra. I hit the ground with a thud.

"Ow," I moaned, sitting up unceremoniously. My head hit the tarmac a lot harder than I had meant it too. Groaning, I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear away the blurriness that now consumed my vision. Pain erupted up my side, causing me to yell out.

"Graceful, fleshling. Real graceful," Blackout murmured, chuckling slightly. Then, the distinct sounds of him transforming started up again, and before I knew it, he was standing in front of me. He shook his shoulders and stretched his arms out, grinning cockily. I froze.

"Oh my gosh! The evil alien helicopter has a sense of humor!" I cried sarcastically, earning me a glare in response. The fuzziness in my head finally cleared, allowing me to see. I went to stand up before my head protested violently in response, ordering me to take it easy. I metal hand snatched me from the floor and lifted me upwards.

"Don't test me, fleshling. You're lucky I am in a good mood, otherwise you'll have regretted that." He growled, causing me to roll my eyes.

"Big softie," I whispered aloud. Unsurprisingly, he heard me, causing him to shake me slightly. I fell over in his hand, landing on my butt. I stared up at him, only to find him grinning wickedly at me. I slapped his finger lightly, before laughing in response. My laughter quickly stopped as my burn flared up again. A cry of pain tore from my throat.

Blackout suddenly went rigid, his eyes dimming slightly.

"Urm, Blackout? You ok there?" I asked, worry beginning to rise in my stomach. Had I done something wrong? As quickly as he had grown distracted, he was back again.

"Oh slag." He cursed. Before I had the chance to ask him what was wrong, I was cut off.

By the terrifying roar of an engine and a loud, piercing police siren.


	5. Chapter 5

I wheeled around quickly, my eyes widening as they took in the sudden appearance of the police car.

The first thing I noticed was that it wasn't your ordinary police car. It was a mustang. Definitely a custom build. It had an aggressive grill attached to the front of it and two large lights on top. The number on the car was '643' and it had the same weird symbol that you could find on Blackout. Except, it was on the side of the car, not underneath it like Blackout's was.

The biggest thing I noticed were the words on the side of the car. Instead of your bog standard 'To protect and serve', this car had the words 'To punish and enslave' printed on it. I gulped. This was definitely a custom build.  
"Barricade," Blackout stated calmly, his eyes unwavering from the car.

It was in that moment that I realised that this car wasn't just a car, it was a comrade of Blackout. It was also the moment that the cop car decided to transform and shoot Blackout's arm, causing me to fall. I screamed as the air around me seemed to blur. I tensed, preparing to hit the ground. The ground never came. The pressure on my burn, however, did.

"Look at it Blackout. So weak and fragile. I could squish it between my two fingers." The cop car, Barricade purred. He had me in his hand, and was moving me around, trying to get a better look at me. "It's life, such an easy thing to snuff out," He purred again, causing me to quake in fear.

"Barricade, be careful with her or I will offline you!" Blackout threatened before leaning back against the side of a tall building. He kept a watchful eye over the two of us, but aside from that, did nothing to intervene.

"You're calling it a her?" Barricade purred, his tone condescending. Blackout rolled his eyes before nodding.

"That's what they call femmes, Barricade. She doesn't know what a femme is. She was annoying me with all of her questions, so I decided to make it easier for myself," Blackout calmly explained. Barricade regarded him with interest before shrugging.

"Suit yourself, it's your squishy." Barricade purred before lifting me up again, this time by the legs. I hissed in pain as his claw brushed the tip of my thigh, scratching my burn softly. He dangled me in front of his face, causing my blood to rush to my head.

"That's not how you hold a fleshling, Barricade!" Blackout snapped, sounding rather annoyed. "She has a head injury, you might hurt her, you fraggin' git!"

Immediately, Barricade turned me the right way round. He dropped me into his hand with a clatter. My burn screamed in protest. "So, what have you told her about us so far?" He asked, sounding amused. Blackout shook his head in response, causing Barricade to hum in reply.

"My designation is Barricade, squishy. I am decepticon. We're apart of the cybertronian race. We're currently at war with the autobots, A.K.A autoscum. We want to fix cybertron, they want to live on your planet. Simple." Barricade stated before turning to walk into the large hangar. I was surprised by the movement, and leaned over to grab his finger, causing him to glance at me in annoyance.

"So you guys are at war then?" I asked, my voice squeaking slightly in fear. Get a grip of yourself, Hazel! Blackout won't let him hurt you, and so far, he's been harmless.

"Yes." Blackout grunted, before rounding on Barricade. "Hang on, why aren't you tracking down Ladiesman217?" Barricade shrugged his shoulders, before placing me on the ground and gesturing to the light switch. I ran over to it and quickly pressed it on.

"Because, I wanted to meet the human. Besides, I brought supplies," He stated, acting as if it weren't a big deal. I looked towards the supplies, which had a whole bunch of things in it, including stuffed toys. I quirked an eyebrow at the cop car.

"Starscream will offline you if you stay here a second longer, Barricade! Leave now, and do your job!" Blackout exclaimed, causing Barricade to laugh at him.

"See ya later, Human," He stated, before transforming into his cop car and peeling away, sirens screeching. Blackout rubbed his head tiredly. He stopped hesitantly as he took in my awestruck gaze.

"What, fleshling?" He growled out, causing me to laugh. He shot me a cold glare.

"Humans rub their heads like that too," I explained, and he growled at me coldly. _The fuck? This dude was a bipolar little shit wasn't he?_

"Humans are weak," He bit out before striding away. "Gather your supplies and put them somewhere useful, fleshling. Then, make yourself scarce. If I see your face again, it'll be too soon." He scowled, before storming from the hangar. My eyes traced after his figure numbly, before turning around to the items scattered around the floor.

Sighing, I scanned the hangar, noting that it was the largest one on base. My eyes snapped to what appeared to be a conference room, located on the farthest wall of the hangar door. It's windows were tinted, meaning that nobody could see in. Yet, I was sure that I would be able to see out. I made up my mind.

I picked through the supplies excitedly. Momentarily distracting myself from my pain. Turns out, Barricade had quite the sense of style, surprising me greatly. He'd gotten me two pairs of jet black jeans, with one pair having holes strategically cut into them. He'd also gotten me a few button down plaid shirts. Alongside some other shits, a couple of pair of shorts and a necklace, he'd also picked up for me a new pair of shoes. I appreciated the gesture, even if they were a few sizes too big.

Moving my new clothes to the conference room, I threw them lazily in the corner, not bothering to take the time to neaten them up. I went back down to the supplies again, bringing in the blow up mattress, bedding, soft toys and hygiene products. Finally, I went to the bucket of food, not realising just how hungry I was.

I pulled it open, secretly thanking Barricade. He had gotten me a large pack of bottled water, alongside a smaller back of blue gatorade. Some crisps, fruit salads, candy bars and popcorn were also shoved inside the bucket. Beaming, I skipped back up to my room, cracking open a few candy bars as I went.

A few hours later, and I was bored, and in pain. My burn was killing me. Sighing, I swivelled myself around on one of the conference room chairs, clutching my soft toy to my chest. I stopped, turning towards the window as I saw Blackout drag yet another plane out from the hangar. He was moving them to the other hangars, making room for other decepticons. _Which is odd, considering there's only three of them. They didn't need that much room._

I leapt from the chair, dropping the toy on the floor as I headed for the door. My side protested greatly, causing me to bite back tears. Still, I forced myself onwards. There was no use waiting around, so I may as well put myself to some use. I would be staying here for a while, I could tell. There was no way in hell these guys were going to let me go now that I knew where their base was. Still, I could make myself useful, try to source out a fridge or a generator. Maybe even scourge through some of the abandoned planes for weapons and supplies.

The sound of my footsteps hitting the steel steps caused Blackout to whip around, igniting his cannon. I could feel the heat from where I stood, pain suddenly rocketing through my side again. I cursed loudly, resisting the urge to clutch at it blindly, knowing that it'll make it worse.

"Chill, dude. I'm going to go see if I can find a first aid kit, I need to treat this burn, otherwise it'll get worse. I'll see if I can source out any other cool things too. Like cars and petrol. You'll never know when those things will come in handy," I responded quietly, my voice soothing. He regarded me with a cautious stare, before turning away brusquely.

"Try to escape, and I will kill you," He growled, and I knew he wouldn't hesitate if it came down to it. I nodded once more, before leaving the hangar, heading for one nearby.

After a while of searching, I had hit the jackpot. Not only had I located a huge generator with enough fuel to last us months, but I had also found a huge infirmary, with easily enough things to ease my burn. Grabbing the equipment, I bolted to the bathroom, before turning to the mirror. With a sigh, I lifted up my shirt before a cry of horror escaped my lips.

The burn wrapped around my entire side, spanning from under my armpit, down my side until the top of my thigh. It finished mid way through my back, wrapping around the majority of my stomach. The burn was horrible. It was bright red, with some parts of it tinged black. It was cut open and bleeding in some places, from where my body had impacted the tarmac. I stiffened, carefully pulling out some gauze wrap from the medicine kit. I poured some burn cream onto my finger, and hesitantly, pressed it against my side.

Immediately afterwards, I regretted it. A horrifying scream tore itself from my throat as a wave of pure, agonising pain rocked me to my core. I fell forward, grabbing the bench with my arms as my legs collapsed from beneath me. It was like my fingers had set off a bomb on my side, as piercing pain ran all along my side, causing me to scream bloody murder.

Seconds later, a male figure tore into the room his dark eyes wide with urgency.

"Femme!" He roared as he ran to me. I continued to cry out in agony as I fell towards the stranger. He caught me under my arms, causing my burn to flare up again, making me scream louder. He looked shocked as I screamed, almost as if he couldn't understand why. I didn't blame him. He had no idea what had happened. Hell, I didn't even know who the heck he was.

"It burns, oh my god, it burns!" I shrieked, grabbing at my shirt. Without a second thought, the dark eyed stranger tore my shirt open. I would've slapped him and yelled at him for being indecent, but I was in too much pain to give a damn. His eyes betrayed no emotion aside from a tiny bit of shock. I was losing focus quickly though as consciousness began to escape me.

"Frag," He cursed, before it all turned black.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

For the first time in a long time, Blackout had no idea what to do. The human femme, who not moments before, had been screaming bloody murder, was now lay slackened in his grasp. _Oh, how easy it would be to offline her right that second,_ Blackout thought, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He stared at her form, still shuddering as she slept. Blackout turned to the charred skin littering her side and cursed again.

He had been outside, tossing the human jets from the main hangar as she had gone exploring. In all honesty, the human fleshling hadn't crossed Blackout's mind once as he worked. He was sure, judging from the look on her face when he had threatened her, that she had heeded his words, deciding not to run like a fool. _Smart femme._

Blackout had been lost in his work, when he had first heard her scream. For a second, he was back on Cybertron, hearing a terrified femme scream out in agony as one of her fellow cybertronians ripped into her, tearing her sparkling from her spark chamber. But then he realised that it wasn't a femme, instead it was the fleshling. He had instantly feared the worst. Activating his holoform, he had bolted in the direction the screams had come from.

Looking back on it later, Blackout had no idea what had come over him. He didn't understand the need to protect the human fleshling. Nor did he understand why he wanted to be _kind_ to it. It made Blackout uncomfortable to no end, with the only comforting thought being that he wasn't the only one experiencing it. Barricade was too.

Because Barricade had told him. The need to protect the fleshling had instilled within him, too. Blackout guessed that was why Barricade had high tailed it out of there so quickly.

' _ **She's different, Blackout. You can see it as much as I can. She… has what it takes. She carries herself like a true decepticon, even if she is just a fleshling.'**_ Had been Barricade's exact words. And it was true, completely true. The way that Hazel carried herself _screamed_ decepticon. The way she tried to be strong, to not show any emotion, how her first reaction to most things were humour and sarcasm. Even to the point of the way she spoke. Hazel Brooks had all of the traits a decepticon needed.

Blackout hadn't been prepared for this, not at all.

When she had been residing within his cockpit, crying about how her government had lied to her, how the people she had trusted had lied to her, and how her brother wasn't coming back, he had felt angry. Blackout had _comforted_ her, for christ's sake!

The human was making him feel.

And Blackout absolutely hated himself for it.

With a resounding sigh, Blackout picked up the young human girl. He glanced down at her.

She could be of use to the decepticon cause. They needed a human spy, to be able to get into the military, to spy on the autobots. They needed her almost as much as she needed them.

With a curse, Blackout carried the girl to his alt mode, placing her softly inside. With a few quick internet searches, Blackout located the nearest hospital. With his precious cargo located inside, he took off. Not slowing down for even a second as he flew.


	6. Chapter 6

"Jason! Jace, come quick, look what I've found!" A bubbly, young Hazel called out to her brother. With a roll of his eyes, thirteen year old Jason stalked over to his sisters side, glaring at her slightly. She didn't take notice of it though, instead pointing at something she had found.

"Look how pretty it is, Jace. We should pick it for Mommy," Hazel exclaimed and Jason immediately shook his head.

"That's a weed, Hazel. Mom won't care about a stupid weed. Now leave me alone, I'm talking to my friends," Jason spat, before kicking the weed and storming away. Hazel stared at her brother dejectedly for a moment, before pulling her knees to her chest and starting to cry.

Jason froze at the sound of his sister's heartbroken sobs. He bristled, turning around to look at her. Taking in her broken form, guilt pierced through him like a knife. He turned back to his computer, quickly muttering a simple bye before walking over to his sister. He sat next to her for a moment, before hugging her shaking shoulders.

"I'm sorry," He whispered, "Mom would love a pretty flower. Come on, I'll help ya find one."

With a slight sniffle and a nod of her head, Hazel stood up, before following her brother further into the forest.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

"I've never seen a weapons system like this. The thermal shows this weird aura around the exoskeleton, almost like it's cloaking it," Epps stated, fear clear within his tone. Will didn't react, he simply stared forward, surveying the desert stretched out before them. They had escaped the Qatar base a few days ago, and there weren't many people left. Lennox surveyed the small group of survivors that were left behind. There were a few men that Lennox had only seen a few times around base, as well as Mahfouz, Figueroa, Donnelly, Epps and himself. But there was one person missing.

The bile rose within his throat as he pictured her, the young, raven haired, green eyed eighteen year old who had been found wandering around the desert by herself. She had been on the verge of death, completely dehydrated, starving and suffering from a bad bout of sunstroke, yet, she had managed to keep herself in high spirits. Cracking jokes the entire journey back to base.

The two of them had clicked instantly, and when she met Epps, the three of them had become fast friends.

And now, Ashley was gone. He had seen her go down. The explosion had gone off right next to her and that thing, causing a giant piece of burning metal to cover half of her body. Guilt racked through him as he recounted the nights events, because Will knew that he had had a chance to save her. If he had just ran over there, pulled her from the metal and made a run for it, he would've saved her. But he hadn't been thinking straight. Instead of saving her, he ran, the last sound that filled his ears being the sound of her agonised screams.

"How about you use those magic voodoo powers of yours to get us the hell outta here, huh?" Donnelly suddenly snapped, causing Will's head to whip up to him. Donnelly was glaring at Figueroa who merely shrugged, casting his eyes down sheepishly.

"When I took that picture, I think it saw me. It look right at me," Epps muttered, before casting a worried look in Will's direction. Will tried to give his friend a smile of encouragement, but he knew that it came out more like a grimace. Epps flinched.

"All right, we got to get this thing to the Pentagon right away, they're gonna wanna know what we're dealing with here," Will stated, earning nods of agreement in return.

"My radios fried, I've got no connection with aerial," Epps frowned, glaring at the radio in his hand. Will walked up to him and patted his shoulder gently.

"Hey, Mahfouz. You know, how far do you live from here?" Will asked.

"Not far, just up that mountain," He responded, somewhat distractedly.

"Do they have a phone?" Will barked.

"Yes." Mahfouz nodded, and Will made up his mind.

"All right, let's hit it," Will ordered, as they began to trudge onwards. The bitter feeling of hope began to rise within will once more, but he forced it down, cursing softly.

A couple of hours later, the group were finally in sight of the town.

"Let's hope this telephone line works," Will muttered to himself softly, glancing around at his group. They all looked exhausted, and many were beginning to feel the effects of the heat. Epps walked towards a pot of water that was seated on the wall, before promptly picking it up and dumping it over his head. He smiled for a moment, and Will shook his head, chuckling softly.

That was when all hell broke lose.

A large cloud of dust erupted from behind them, causing the soldiers to instantly flee.

"Heads up!"

"Heads up, hey!"

"Heads up, whoa!" Multiple soldiers screamed as the thing crashed into the sign, causing it to begin to fall.

They froze, watching the sound carefully with calculating eyes. But, as soon as it had been there, the scorpion thing had gone.

"What the heck was that?" Donnelly wandered aloud, causing Figueroa to shrug his shoulders in reply. He says something in spanish, causing the rest of the soldiers to quirk their eyebrows at him.

"English, dude, english," Donnelly muttered, scowling slightly.

Will smirked to himself softly, rolling his eyes as he turned his attention back onto the town before him. He thought he heard the sound of metal being sheathed, but he didn't dwell on it. That was until Epps turned to face him and started screaming.

"WOAH!" Epps screamed, causing Will to turn, coming face to face with the tip of the scorpions tail. Without hesitation, he threw himself forward, blindly grabbing at his rifle and firing. The rest of the soldiers joined in, causing bullets to be fired in every possible direction.

The scorpion leapt from the sand suddenly, causing Will to push himself backwards, trying to get as far away from the thing that he could. Continuing to fire, the scorpion quickly became hidden in a cloud of dust, causing fear to rise in the back of Will's throat. It was silent for a moment, before the thing leapt again, stabbing Donnelly threw the chest and throwing him. His body landed in the sand with a soft thud, and Will's eyes widened. The soldiers bolted, scaling the hill as fast as their legs could carry them. Screaming the entire way down, Will tried his best to remain close to Epps and Mahfouz, determined not to lose either of them.

They leapt over the towns barriers, watching as everybody became a mass of panic and terrified screams.

Mahfouz and Will continued to run, dodging the scorpions' fire as they did so.

"Papa, Papa!" Mahfouz screamed, causing a man to turn around and face them.

"Mahfouz!" He cried, running forward and taking his son in his arms.

Will gestured to the telephone wildly, the man understanding instantly. Tossing the phone into Will's arms, the man grabbed Mahfouz and they ran to the other end of the house.

Annoyance flitted through Will's features as the operator continued to sweet talk him, not helping his case at all. "I'm in the middle of a freaking war!" Will screamed into the mic, but the operator didn't seemed to care.

Will bolted over to Epps. "Epps, I need a credit card! Where's your wallet?"

Epps glanced over to him, "Back pocket! Back pocket, left cheek! Left cheek!" He screamed, and Will quickly grabbed the wallet.

After finally connecting to the pentagon, Will chucked the phone to Epps before taking off suddenly. He bolted around to Mahfouz, grabbing a gun and firing at the thing blindly whilst he was at it. Will glanced up seeing air support coming in, followed by what looked to be a black ops helicopter. Will sighed in relief, until he noticed the orange smoke now surrounding he and Epps both.

"There aiming for this smoke! Fuck, run!" Will screamed, bolting back towards the village. Epps ran to his side, and together they bolted, jumping behind some sandbags as the missiles struck the scorpion full force. Will covered his ears as he cocooned himself into a ball. Finally, when the firing stopped, he looked up, counting all of his men aside from one.

"Where's Fig?" He asked, before hearing a familiar scream.

They found him seriously injured, and in pain, yet stable. Epps nodded at Will before running to wave down the helicopter, which quickly landed beside them. All of the men jumped off the chopper, making a beeline for Will and Fig. Whilst the rest of the team ran for the helicopter, Will turned to a man standing beside him, who looked awfully familiar. Will couldn't place where he'd seen him before though.

"Damn it," The man cursed, causing Will to raise an eyebrow before, "It's the little dude who struck here, aye? The scorpion? The big one's the one you have to look out for man, that dude is crazy!" The man stated, and Will nodded in response.

"Met him. He killed my friend," Will responded, causing the man to nod sadly in response.

"Mine too. He used to be my chopper," The man grinned, causing Will to turn to him in shock.

"It did? 4500X was yours?" Will asked and the man nodded once more in response, thrusting out his hand to shake Will's own. "William Lennox," Will stated, causing the man to grin.

"The name's Jason. Jason Brooks."

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

The first thing I noticed was the sound of beeping machines. Groggily, I shuddered slightly, fluttering my eyes open. I was in a white room. Everything in it was white, the walls, the bed, the floor, heck, even the furniture. I rolled over slightly, ignoring the aggravating burn in my side for a moment, the pain a lot less intense than it had been before. My eyes locked on a figure huddled in one of the small plastic chairs. I couldn't recognise his face from anywhere.

He appeared to be sleeping. His medium length, dark helicopter grey hair resting peacefully over his eyes. His face, narrow and pointy, was arranged in what appeared to be constant smirk. His eyebrows were sharp and angled, giving him a much more menacing look. He was tallish, bordering on the line between average height and tall. He had a slim build, and his face was very pale. He was very good looking, even I couldn't ignore that fact.

Suddenly, he snapped awake. His piercing red eyes connecting with my own. I gasped at the beauty of them. Even if they were cold and unfeeling, his eyes looked exactly like blood red rubies. They looked like Blackout's own. That was when it all clicked.

"Blackout?" I asked, my eyes widening at his figure. He smirked at me, before leaning his face right into my own. His breath fanned my face, causing me to notice the hints of diesel and mint that were contained within it. His fringe seemed to be just touching his eyes as he peered at me from beneath it, I gasped slightly.

"You're smarter than you let on, fleshling," He growled, his deep, familiar baritone comforting me slightly. I nodded in acceptance of the compliment, knowing that it was probably the only compliment I would be receiving from him in a while. I looked around the room. My confusion must've been showing on my face, as Blackout suddenly smirked, causing me to stare.

"We are in what you humans call a 'hospital'. You have second-degree and third-degree burns to your torso. You should stay in here longer for treatment, but we are living immediately," He ordered, picking himself up. I stared at him gobsmacked.

"Why are we leaving so soon? You just said that I should stay here for more treatment!" I snapped at him, and he narrowed his eyes in a cold glare.

"I have all of the supplies you will need, fleshling. You are coming back with me, where we will be discussing something with yourself, Barricade, Brawl, Bonecrusher, Starscream and I. We want to strike a deal, as you would say," He stated, and I jumped slightly, shock coursing through me like a lightning bolt.

"There's more of you? How long have I been out?" I questioned, before he rolled his eyes, picking up a bag of medical supplies.

"Yes. They arrived two days ago. Barricade returned earlier today after getting his aft handed to him by the kid and the Autoscum. Now, they just have to wait for the rest of the Autoscum to land. They'll be here in three orns. That's thirty-nine days for you, fleshling. We have been discussing you in great detail. But you will find out about that later. Now come on, we have an hour long trip ahead of us. I'll catch you up on what happened whilst you were out."

"How long was I out?" I wondered again, and he scowled down at me before saying five days. He stormed from the room as I tried to turn myself of the bed, but my side was all stiff and tight.

"Blackout," I called out desperately, hoping that he would hear me. "Little help here?"

Surprisingly, he walked back in, cursing under his breath in Cybertronian. He lifted me off the bench, carefully avoiding my burns, before turning around and storming from the room once more. Grabbing the soft toy that Barricade had given me before, I quickly ran out after him, not wanting to be left behind.

Seated in the co-pilot seat of Blackout, I turned to face the screen, watching as it turned on. I watched on in interest as it named the survivors of the Qatar base attack. I grinned as I saw that Epps, Will and Fig were among the survivors, but that grin quickly fell when I remembered them leaving me behind. I blanched slightly, tears filling my eyes as I felt the strong burn of betrayal deep within my soul.

"They betrayed you, didn't they," A baritone voice called, and I glanced up to see Blackout's human form sitting in the cockpit, his red eyes sparkling. I nodded grimly, before glancing down at my hands. He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck somewhat awkwardly, before saying "Forget about them then." He clicked the TV, and it opened to my brothers folder. He selected a video, before pressing play.

"Lieutenant Brooks," The man from the other video stated calmly, causing my brother to turn and look at him. My brother nodded his head once, before looking up at him expectantly.

"We are disappointed that you do not wish to join Sector Seven, however that is your choice. We are unable to let you be released yet though. You will be put into the hands of the military until then. But, you will remain as a liaison between us and the military. Do you understand?" The man asked, and Jason nodded grimly, glaring at the man with hate. The man nodded once, before turning it leave.

The second he was through the door, Jason ripped his hat from his head and rubbed a hand through his freshly cut hair with a resounding sigh. I noticed that he had been stripped of his air marshall ranks, which surprised me greatly. He would never had allowed that at all.

Jason looked up to the camera before nodding once.

"One of these days, I'm going to kill them all." He said, before the recording fizzled out. I stared at the video in shock. My brother was double crossing the military? How stuffed was this. Running a hand down the side of my face, I turned to Blackout.

"So, what deal are we talking about when we get to base?" I asked, and the seat beneath me stiffened. I glanced over at the human Blackout, and noticed he was the clenching the wheel with white knuckles. After a fraction of hesitation, Blackout turned to me.

"We're discussing whether you live, or die."


	7. Chapter 7

As Blackout landed, fear gripped through me like a knife. It was dark now, and the only thing illuminating the tarmac in front of us was a large, bright spotlight. Parked on the tarmac, were four other vehicles. Three looked completely unfamiliar to me, but I recognised one instantly. _Barricade._

Blackout practically threw me out of him as he began to transform, and I took the time to look over the other vehicles. One was a military tank, much liked the one I had found on base earlier, much to Blackout's glee. The vehicle next to it was a huge Buffalo mine protected vehicle. It was very peculiar, as I could feel the hate rolling off it in waves. I flinched as it seemed to glare me down, seething with hate. Finally, I turned to the F-22 Raptor parked beside it, instantly detecting an aura of nobility resonating from it. My curiosity was instantly piqued.

Seconds later, they all transformed at once. I leapt back in shock, tripping over Blackout's foot in the process. I managed to steady myself however, glaring at Blackout's snickering form. I was about to bite back a response, before a dark voice cut me off.

"So this is the fleshie I've heard so much about."

I turned to face what was seconds before an F-22 Raptor, regarding him carefully. Blackout nodded once, blatantly uncaring towards the Raptor. I didn't blame him, this guy seemed hella up himself.

"Hazel, not fleshie, Hazel," I growled, feeling a moment of confidence consume me. I regretted it instantly as I felt the Buffalo vehicles' eyes narrow at me. The F-22 Raptor was about to say something in return before nodding. Scowling at me slightly. I saw Barricade shake slightly, obviously from laughter.

"Who cares, _fleshie_?" He stated, emphasising the word fleshie just to piss me off. I quirked an eye at him, crossing my arms over my chest and choosing to flip him off. He didn't do anything in return, just shook his head slightly.

"Blackout, you should learn to control your _pet_ ," The Buffalo vehicle snarled. I cowered slightly, my false bravado quickly falling apart. He grinned when he saw me cower, and all I could focus on was the pure evil in his eyes. I pushed my body closer to Blackout's foot, causing him to push me slightly in annoyance.

"Noted, Bonecrusher," Blackout stated, his tone seemingly uncaring. I could detect a slight amount of anger though. Perhaps Blackout didn't get along with him either.

"Cut the slag and get to what you wanted to say, Screamer, before I offline this human myself!" The tank suddenly bellowed, causing Barricade to utter a barely inaudible 'Brawl'.

I shrunk back under the tanks calculating gaze, before shaking myself slightly. _No, earn their respect. Do not let them walk all over you Hazel. Show them that you have something to offer._

"Yeah. Get on with it. None of us want to be here a moment longer then we have to," I snapped, smirking coldly. Screamer looked oddly taken aback, before smirking at me. Brawl nodded, a grin etching on his face whilst Barricade sighed in what seemed like relief. Bonecrusher remained mostly indifferent, but I could clearly see the look of shock hidden behind his eyes.

"You were right, she has what it takes to make a decepticon Blackout," Screamer nodded, impressed. _What, Me? A decepticon._ I looked at Blackout, confused, but he refused to meet my gaze.

"I told you, I chose right. Barricade agrees with me, _Lord_ Starscream," Blackout responded, adding a hint of sarcasm to Starscream's name. I grinned at him, trying to control my laughter as I realised that Starscream had no idea how little his men actually respected him. Starscream rounded on me.

"Look, fleshie. I hate that we're stooping to this level, but our holographs are just not cutting it. We're giving you an option. You have two choices. You pledge your allegiance to the decepticon cause, in turn promising a lifetime of service to us. You would choose us over your government, you'd be betraying your military. Your family, your friends. You would be trained by us to become a spy, and you'd be doing a lot for us. Think of it as if you were our slave, or maybe comrade," Starscream stated calmly, and I nodded meekly, mulling it over in my head.

"What's the other option?" I squeaked, and Bonecrusher cast me a dark look, which I ignored.

Starscream pulled out his cannon, firing it up almost immediately. He waved it in my face, and I gasped as my side began to prickle immediately. _Thank the lord for numbing cream._

"I offline you right now. Make a choice squishy. You have ten klicks to decide," He paused for a moment, "Nine."

Could I do it? Could I really betray my own country and people for a bunch of gigantic alien robots? Evil ones at that? Could I become a spy, become a hater of the human race. Betray my family and my friends. Lose all hope of finding my brother? I would no longer be just Hazel Brooks, I would be a decepticon. Turning my back on the good guys. Helping evil to corrupt the world. Could I do this?

I thought back to Qatar, bitterness rising in my throat as I realised that all who I cared for always got abandoned. They left me to die in Qatar. Jason left me. Mom and Dad left me. They all left me.

 _I_ didn't need any of them. I only needed myself. "Four," Starscream smirked, his cannon whirring once more. I nodded softly before turning to face the cannon head on.

"I'll do it," I answered confidently. "I'll help you."

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

It had been about a month since I had chosen to join the decepticons, and life was running smoothly. It had been tough at first, getting used of all of the 'Cons and all of the training regimes. But I had done it. And after I had gotten used to how rigorous training was, I was fine.

I became Blackout's responsibility. He fed me, brought me supplies, handled the majority of my training and generally took care of me. We had grown close, over the past thirty days. A lot closer than I had ever fought possible. We spent almost the entirety of everyday with one another, it was hard not to become close.

Blackout trained me how to survive. He taught me how to think like a decepticon. How to act and how to fight. He trained me hand to hand combat, as well as how to take down a decepticon. He also taught me how to understand and read cybertronian. I would never be able to speak it, as human vocal chords couldn't make the sounds needed, but I'd be able to understand it if 'bots spoke it near me.

Barricade and I had become almost sibling like. He taught me how to scout, to hunt and how to be as quiet and sneaky as possible. He taught me how to blend in. To become a shadow. To be so ordinary that people don't realise that things aren't ordinary at all. He babied me a lot though, and often our training involved me pretending to be an officer and gathering intel on multiple people among the force. It was a fun game for us to play, as we often took bets to see who would get the most intel. It was interesting, to say the least.

Barricade had also shown me his 'holoform' which is what they called the human versions of themselves. He had the same, piercing red eyes as Blackout, but they were not nearly as attractive. He had a tattoo spanning up the inside of his forearm. It was the words 'To Punish and Enslave' in cybertronian. His black hair was always styled in a quiff, and he had a low amount of stubble, framing his face. His teeth were pointy, mostly cat like. And he was reasonably tall, taller then Blackout was, that's for sure.

Brawl and I didn't really speak much. He taught me how to make and use weapons out of anything I could find. He taught me the code names, how to act in hostage situations and more. He also like to tell me gory stories of killing autobots, which often caused me to laugh as he went off on a whole tangent about ripping off heads.

Starscream and I also got on surprisingly well. After I got used to his initial obnoxiousness, he was a pretty cool guy. He'd talk a lot about his trine mates, Thundercracker and Skywarp, and about the pranks that they used to get up to. He taught me a lot of science-y stuff, like how to make sticky bombs and why you shouldn't douse a chicken in hydrochloric acid. Random, I know. He taught me mechanics as well, so I knew how to perform basic repairs on them. Starscream also taught me how to fly, and I realised just how much I loved it. I'd even been given my own arsenal of planes to fly as a birthday gift, which was pretty awesome.

Bonecrusher was forced to hang out with me four times a week by Starscream. And it often was insufferable. He hated _everything_ , including himself. And it drove me nuts. He was such a pessimist, always talking about what a crappy leader Starscream was (Which he was, mind you) and how they were all going to be offlined by autobots. Aside from that, the only thing that he would talk about was killing. And torturing. And why humans sucked. He also taught me some battle tactics, which I was grateful for, but outside of the time that we were force to hang out with each other, I'd avoid him like the plague.

I'm fairly certain he was avoiding me as well.

Not long after I'd joined the decepticons, Barricade introduced me to his mini-con, Frenzy. Frenzy was insane. Literally. And I loved him for it. He had really bad speech, so he would only talk in cybertronian, but he was awesome to hang out with. He also taught me how to hack things, including Sam Witwicky's phone, which was pretty fun. He and Barricade were prankers through and through, often spending their free time pranking Bonecrusher and Starscream. Occasionally they'd get Brawl and Blackout too, but that was only on a rare occasion. Apparently, they weren't fun enough to prank. In reality, it was because Frenzy was terrified of them both and Barricade cared too much to make him suffer.

Scorponok had returned from Qatar missing a tail, which had made Blackout quite mad. Like Frenzy and Barricade, Blackout and Scorponok had a close relationship also. Blackout was going to rip the humans apart when he meets them again, that's for sure. They had a weird sort of bond, kind of like one you would see between a father and son, but when I had asked Blackout about it, he had merely stated that they had been comrades for many years. I think there's a lot more to it than that though, and one of these days I'll find out what.

"Fleshling." A dead beat, cold voice stated from behind me. I turned to face him, sighing as I took in the familiar features of Bonecrusher. His hunched figure towering over my own. I snapped my fingers before nodding.

"What is it, Bonecrusher?" I asked him, staring at his ruby red optics. He glowered at me, before turning away from me, desperate to break eye contact.

"Lord Starscream wishes to speak to you. He's in the main hangar, with Blackout. Do not be late," He warned, before striding away, only hesitating slightly as he did so. Inwardly, I smirked. _I think that dudes beginning to warm up to me._

I swirled on my heels, heading towards the main hangar. The main hangar had pretty much become our meeting place/ main hangout/ base of operations. I lived in the conference room, and it had quickly become Blackout, Barricade and Brawl's home too. Starscream and Bonecrusher opted for their own hangars, go figure, and Frenzy roomed with me. Scorponok was still stuck in the infirmary for now, but I had no doubts that when he was fully functional, he would maintain his spot as Blackout's right hand man.

I strolled into the hangar lazily, noting how it was only Starscream and Blackout who were inside. Both in their bipedal modes, they seemed locked in a heated discussion, not noticing that I had arrived. After a few more moments of waiting for them to finish their hushed bickering, I wolf whistled, causing Blackout to turn his cannon on me.

"Woah, you sure do have a habit of brandishing that thing, don't ya? Remind me to never get on ya pissy side, Blackie," I exclaimed, pretending to be more surprised than I actually was. He rolled his optics, lowering his cannon slowly. I felt the prickles of pain rise up in my side again, and willed them away.

The burn had healed up badly. My entire side was now twisted with scarred tissue. For a while, it had been impossible to move, as my skin was so tight. But, the Cons forced me too. They forced me to push through the agonising pain I suffered every time I attempted a move. Because of this, I was now stronger. I had a higher tolerance level to pain, it just didn't bother me anymore. Heat, however, was still a sore spot for my side, which bristled with slight pain every time something remotely hot comes near to it. It was both a blessing, and a curse, wrapped up into one.

"Ah! Fleshie-con, nice for you to finally join us. I sent Bonecrusher after you three breems ago!" Starscream yelled, sarcasm soaking his tone. Starscream had gotten into the annoying habit of calling me 'Fleshie-con' as he refused to call me by my actual name, or designation, as they called it. I looked at him slowly before shrugging.

"I only saw him about two minutes ago. Not my problem. Shoulda sent the scout instead," I replied, and Blackout chuckled softly, his eyes connecting with my own for a moment. I smiled warmly at him, and he merely nodded in return.

"Who cares!" Starscream snapped, agitated. "I didn't call you here just to have a stupid, petty banter with you, Fleshie-con. It's time for you to do your first real mission. But, we have to fit you with some nanobots first," Starscream added, before picking up a large needle and flicking the end of it pointedly. My eyes zeroed in on the large point with pure horror. I may have a high pain tolerance, but needles still managed to scare the bejesus out of me.

Blackout took a step in front of me, shaking his head.

"No, we do not Starscream. You just want a human to experiment on. My human, will not be your guinea pig," Blackout bit out, his optics flashing brightly in anger. I glanced at him in shock. ' _My human?' Surely not._ Starscream grinned at him sadistically.

"We need to be in contact with her at all times. She needs to feed information to us constantly. What better way to do this then by allowing the nanobots to insert a comm link into her brain," Starscream said. My jaw dropped. That didn't sound particularly pleasing at all.

"There's such thing as a cell phone," Blackout snapped.

"It can be tracked," Starscream responded monotonously.

"Morse code then?"

"Unreliable."

"Letters?" He spat sarcastically in a last ditch effort.

"Too slow."

"Frag it Starscream! You don't even know if the nanobots will work. And, how do you think Bonecrusher's going to react when he is able to get inside her head?" Blackout roared, his claws bawling up into fists. The helicopter blades located on his back started rotating as he breathed through his vents with anger. Starscream shook his head.

" _Bonecrusher_ won't be able to get into the Fleshie-cons head. Only you and her will have a comm link. The rest of us will have to beam our messages through you first," Starscream explained before pointing harshly at me.

"Fleshie-con! Come here immediately," He roared, his tone commanding. I didn't dare go against him as I hung my head low and scurried over to him.

"Yes Lord Starscream," I whispered, absolutely terrified. I could feel the anger rolling of him in waves. Starscream was pissed. Blackout went to open his mouth but he was already too late. Before either of us could react, Starscream jabbed the huge needle into my arm. I shrieked slightly, half in shock and half in pain, as he forced the contents of it into my bloodstream.

When he removed the needle, I wrenched my arm away from him, turning to face him in horror. He was too busy picking up his materials.

"Now, you'll experience severe pain for the next twelve hours as the nanobots work. They won't die out for another vorn, so they'll maintain the comm. link in your head. Only Blackout can access it right now. Eventually, you'll be able to communicate with the rest of us, but for the next stellar cycle, you won't be able to. This is just so your weak human brain can get used to our technology." Starscream explained. "You'll be de-briefed on the mission tomorrow. You'll be mobilised by twelve tomorrow. Oh and Fleshie-con? Good luck getting any recharge tonight." And with a cackle, he left the hangar.


	8. Chapter 8

"Fleshie-con, are you even listening?" Starscream snapped at me in anger. Trying to ignore the fierce burning in my head, I tried to focus on what Starscream was saying to no avail.

Starscream was attempting to run some tests on the nanobots he had inserted into my head.

It was infuriating him that I had lost the ability to focus on what he was saying, in turn slowing him down. There was one thing about Starscream which I had learned fairly quickly, he liked to get things done - quickly.

"My apologies Lord Starscream, my head is killing me," I groaned as I cradled my head within my palms. Starscream glanced down at me before rolling his eyes.

"This is why we don't turn humans into decepticons, Blackout," He spat angrily before switching on his holoform. The human Starscream picked up a syringe that held a dosage of morphine within it before making his way over.

"This is why I hate Fleshies," He complained again, before administering the dosage. Within minutes, my headache began to fade.

"Thank god," I stated as I shook my head slightly. A cocky grin etched across Starscream's holoform as he drank in what I said. I rolled my eyes at him. I wolf whistled at Barricade, attempting to distract him from whatever he was doing. Barricade let out a laugh as he tapped away at the huge monitors that were located at the other end of the room. I didn't have to look to know that he was too busy stalking Samuel Witwicky and the autobot scout, Bumblebee. He'd started to have a little bit of an obsession with the two of them.

"Lord Starscream, should we test the nanobots now?" Blackout spat as he glared at me darkly. I didn't say anything. He had been giving me that look ever since I had woken up. It seems like he had forgotten that I didn't really have a choice with this either. It wasn't fair that he was having a hissy fit at me. Starscream merely nodded before turning to his computer, monitoring the nanites.

' **Stop it.'** Blackout's voice suddenly filtered through my ear. It was working!

' **Stop what?'** I asked in confusion.

' **You're staring at me as if I've just killed your entire family.'**

' **Technically, you did.'** I retorted.

" **He's not dead.'** He stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

' **But he's my enemy now.'**

' **You're choice. You could've chosen to die. But no, you chose to live, because your loyalties are so astray now, aren't they? You have doomed the human race to die. You have the chance to stop it, but you are not taking it. What does that make you?'** Blackout hissed, and I was taken aback. Partly because of his sudden anger, and partly because of how correctly he had hit the nail on the head. Blackout was right. I was a disgrace to the human population. I had signed their death warrant. But do I regret it? No.

I agreed to become a decepticon because there is nothing left for me. At the end of all of this, we're all just going to die anyway. May as well take the fun route out.

' **Stop taking this out on me, Blackout. I realise you're pissed because now you have to talk to the 'squishy' 24/7. But suck it up and deal with it. I didn't choose any of this! I didn't want this either. Hell, sometimes I wish I had just died in Qatar. But you didn't let me. You saved me. Now you have to deal with the consequences of choosing to keep me alive.'** I spat angrily, before Starscream chastised the both of us, saying that stressing the nanobots would cause them to die off in their current, weak state. I breathed out in frustration, before turning away from Blackout.

He was strangely silent after that.

"The Qatar humans have made it back to American soil. Seems like they've been welcomed with open arms. What fools," Barricade suddenly called from his side of the room. I felt my heart clench as I thought of the boys from Qatar. Are Will, Epps, Figueroa and Mahfouz still alive? I desperately prayed that they were. They're good people, and Will deserves to meet his baby girl at least once. Barricade turned to face me.

"You used to be in with them, didn't you Hazel, or should I say Ashley?" Barricade teased.

I opened my mouth to retort before I was rudely interrupted by Bonecrusher barging into the room. He stormed over to Starscream, before dumping a large file on his desk. Starscream merely glanced at it, before he turned to me.

"It seems I must ruin playtime, Fleshie-con. It's time to get to work."

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

I was in way over my head.

When Starscream had said that it was time to get to work, I thought he would've started me on some training missions. You know, kind of like some simple scouting missions or maybe getting a little bit close to the Witwicky boy. But no. That's not the Starscream way.

Ever heard of the saying go big or go home? Well, that is pretty much what is happening right now.

"You have got to be kidding me," I told him as I read over the much smaller file that Starscream had passed to me. He had this huge, obnoxious shit-eating grin on his face as he had past it to me, and now it seemed to be growing by the second.

"It's not that hard, Fleshie-con. You're gathering intelligence, how hard can it be?" Starscream asked, before narrowing his gaze at me. Immediately, he drew his canons on me, and I felt the heat of them begin to tan my face instantly. "You're not backing out of our deal are you? Wouldn't want my canon to accidentally misfire now, would we?" He bit out.

"Stop harassing the Fleshie and get on with the briefing, Lord Starscream," Barricade bit out, looking bored. I don't blame him.

"Fine," Starscream spat, causing a whole lot of goo to go flying everywhere. I wrinkled my nose at him.

"Frenzy, in two days I will be taking you to Air Force One. It's an important aircraft that the humans use to fly their leaders on, before you ask. You must get on that plane and hack the databases. Find everything you can on the Allspark, Megatron, Sector Seven and Sam Witwicky. Barricade will be waiting for you at the landing pad." Starscream stated, directing his attention towards him. Frenzy chattered excitedly in response, and I smiled warmly at him. He could be cute, occasionally.

"Blackout, take Frenzy to the co-ordinates I've sent you. Then, I want you to assist Fleshie-con in her mission, which you will be informed of shortly. You will need to check in with me every twelve hours, give me a status report on her, do you understand?" Starscream ordered. Blackout rolled his eyes before he nodded.

"Barricade, after you've picked up Frenzy, hunt down Sam Witwicky. Try and collect him for us. You've already lost him once. Do not fail me again. Once you have him, bring him here."

Starscream ordered.

"Brawl. Wreck havoc like you always do. I want you to prepare for the arrival of anymore Decepticons. There are a few who are in the immediate vicinity of this pile of rock. Bonecrusher, you are to do Soundwave's job. Monitor the satellites. I want to know everything, especially if they detect anything unusual. I expect that the Autobots will be joining us shortly. I would prefer to have a heads up."

"And finally, Fleshie-con. I am sending you undercover into this building known as 'the Pentagon'. They are trying to break down the code Blackout used in Qatar. I do not wish for you to stop them, I want you to accompany them. Find out about who comes in and who goes out. Find out who is the strongest of the analysts. You will be posing as the analyst 'Ashley Smith'. We kept the first name you used in Qatar." Starscream explained briefly, before nodding at me.

I didn't respond, I was too busy going over what he had just said. I was breaking into the Pentagon. _The fucking Pentagon!_

" **There is no way in hell that this is going to go well,"** I thought to myself.

" **You're not kidding Fleshling. Have some faith. I have to guide you remember."** Blackout responded darkly. I must've accidentally voiced my thoughts in our comm link. Ah well, he was thinking the same thing anyway.

" **And that's meant to make me feel better how?"** I spat back in response, my anger rising yet again at the idiotic helicopter. I must've accidentally voiced that also, as his optics suddenly flashed to mine - his gaze darkening slightly.

" **Fleshie, do your best to note that I am** _ **vorns**_ **older than you, so I have knowledge that you couldn't even begin to understand. I have been ordered to assist you, yes, but that doesn't mean that I have to put my all into it. Therefor, I believe the fleshling saying for it is 'respect your elders'. Best remember that, Squishy."** He chastised. I merely growled at him in response.

Starscream chuckled to himself before turning to Bonecrusher.

"Bonecrusher, you'll be taking Fleshie-con to her destination. I'll be awaiting for you to report back on your arrival. Hurry now, the humans are expecting her," He stated, before turning around and striding away. My head snapped to Bonecrusher so fast that I almost gave myself whiplash. Barricade, Brawl and Blackout burst out laughing at the disgusted looks on both of our faces.

"There is no way in hell that I'm riding with him. Blackout?" I asked, pouting at him. He scoffed, before transforming and flying away.

"Barricade?" I begged and he laughed.

"Naw, I have to go wait for Frenzy, the li'l fragger. You're on your own fleshie," He chortled before leaving. I turned to Brawl.

"Brawl?" I whimpered, and he shook his head.

"A mining vehicle is a lot less conspicuous than a tank, Fleshie-con."

With a sigh, I turned to Bonecrusher. "Frag," He stated whilst glaring at me.


	9. Chapter 9

The trip to the Pentagon hadn't actually been that bad. Sure, for the first two hours, he sulked and brooded and complained about literally everything. From me, right the way through the the exact curve of his hunched back. It had been the most toxic brooding I had ever come across. He had made me want to wallow in a wall of my own self pity by the time he was done.

Then, once broody Bonecrusher had gone away, this new and curious one had appeared in his place.

He had questioned _everything._ From why the sky was blue to whom Albert Einstein was. The guy had wanted to know everything about the human existence. It would've been quite adorable if he didn't act like such a dick almost all of the time. After I had explained all that I could, he had then talked about many things regarding Cybertron, his home planet, and their race.

He'd gone on for hours about the AllSpark, spark mates, cybertronian twins, Iacon, sparklings and the works. He'd even gone as far to tell me what jobs they used to have.

He used to be a tactician. Can you believe that? No, neither could I. I mean, this is the robot who had decided using wikipedia as a reliable source for coordinates and information was a good idea.

Sadly, broody Bonecrusher returned the minute we had arrived outside of the Pentagon. He threw me out of his alt mode, rambled on about stupid fleshie fluids, and drove off again, leaving me to fend for myself. * _Ass._

"You must be Ashley Benson," A nasally voice pierced the air from behind me. Tearing my gaze away from Bonecrusher's retreating figure, I turned to face the new guy expectantly.

"Yeah, that's me. What's it to you?" I bit back, hardly able to contain myself. * _God damn, Barricade's rubbing off on me, majorly._ The guy, who I now realised must be important because he is dressed in a really smart suit, looked appalled by my behaviour. I bit my tongue, allowing a sheepish smile to cross my face. "Sorry, it's been a long ride."

The guy looked calculating for a moment before he sighed, grimacing slightly.

"I'd suggest you keep your tongue in check whilst working around here, Miss Benson, otherwise you are going to find yourself in a lot of unwanted trouble," He stated, glaring at me slightly. I quirked an eyebrow at him. His drawn features reminded me a lot of Starscream, only less dorito shaped. _*Come on, I was going to have to make a dorito joke one day. I mean, who wouldn't? Starscream actually looks like a dorito. Or a pizza slice, just without the appeal._

"I understand, sir," I replied monotonously. Although inside, I was cackling. I had already offended a somewhat important guy, and I'd only been here all of five minutes. Starscream would be pleased. Suddenly, the man stepped forward and held out a black, stick looking thing. He ran it over my body quickly, and I soon realised that it was a weapon scanner. When it didn't pick up on anything, he looked slightly gutted before thrusting a key card into my hand.

"Welcome to the Pentagon, Miss Benson. You would have hoped that your first experience here would've been a more pleasant one, but right now we are in the middle of a national security crisis. So I do apologise for the...heightened security measures around here," The man grinned, before signalling for me to follow him through the glass doors.

It was then that I noticed how protected the building truly was. I took note of the four snipers that were all strategically positioned around the front gate, all so that they could cover the entire area. I noted where every security was placed also, creating a detailed visual picture in my head so that I could relay it to Blackout later. It could be of use some day.

I followed the man through the building, which really wasn't anything special. It looked more like a fancy hotel then a top secret military building. With it's polished marble floors, detailed white walls and gold doorknobs, it looked more like a Marriott hotel than my brothers old military base. I quickly stopped myself short. Who was I kidding, this was the freaking Pentagon - not some base in the middle of Afghanistan.

We passed through another security check, where I was forced to present my keycard. Then, two steel reinforced doors slid open to reveal what could only be described as a hackers playground.

There were monitors everywhere. All of different sizes and different brands. People seemed to be working in rows upon rows, with each trying to access a different line of code. They all had huge headphones on, and each hacker looked completely and utterly engrossed in their work. They were trying to figure out Blackout's message, I realised. Wow, the fragging idiots had been completely tricked by the Decepticons. Playing right into their ball game. And they had no idea.

"You'll be working with the Australians," The agent suddenly piqued up, causing me to snap out of my thoughts abruptly. I nodded my head as he lead me towards a half empty row. There were only two hackers seated in it, a male and a female. The blonde haired female glanced up from her work as we approached, her eyes lighting up as she caught sight of me.

"Oh thank god, another chick. We need some womanly power to be able to balance out all this testosterone," She joked, her voice showcasing her thick, australian accent. She stood up, forcefully pushing her chair back, causing it to shriek loudly. Several hackers glanced up from their work, before quickly returning to bashing their keyboards. I smiled warmly at her as she thrust out her hand.

"The names Maggie Madsen, I'm a former analyst for the NSA. Keller called me in, because as you can tell - we have no idea what we're dealing with!" She stated loudly, throwing her hands up in the air in the process. Several people turned to glare at her for being so loud, and the room seemed to freeze for a second before the buzz continued, causing Maggie to smirk at me. "I love doing that. It drives them nuts," She chuckled, her eyes glinting mischievously. The guy standing next to me glared, but neither of us paid him any attention.

"Former?" I asked, curiosity bubbling within. She smirked at me, before flicking her hair softly.

"I got fired for correcting my supervisor's comments in his reports, twice. Both times - I was one hundred percent correct," She relented, flicking her bottom lip with her tongue in the process. I grinned at her, nodding my head.

"I'm Ashley Benson, and we are going to get along just fine," I stated, and she turned to grin up at me. Quickly shooing the annoying guy from before away, Maggie dragged me to the computer next to hers. She stuck the headphones on my head, and replayed Blackout's sounds over and over again.

Within the hour, I was bored stupid.

' **You sure love to scream, don't you Blackout?'** I inwardly smirked. It took him a few seconds to respond.

' **Not as loud as you, fleshie.'** He bit back, causing me to grin. Who knew an alien robot actually had a sense of humour!

' **Do you really wanna put that to the test, Blackout?'** I enticed.

' **No.'**

" **Aww, come on it'd be fun. All you gotta do is scream for me.'** I had to hold back the giggle that was threatening to explode. Instead I took a sip from the strategically placed water cooler.

' **Shut it fleshie. I will not scream for you.'** He barked, before there was a pregnant pause. ' **Starscream is the screamer, believe me.'** I choked, loudly.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

"So you're telling me that...that thing had been an alien?" Epps repeated for the millionth time. With a sigh, Jason Brooks ran a fatigued hand through his hair. It was covered in sweat caused by the heat in the interrogation room. The two of them had been at this for hours, whilst the other officer, William Lennox had remained strangely quiet throughout. When Jason had walked in, he had noticed that the man looked to be in deep thought. Jason recognised that look well, as often it had been marred upon his features whilst he was thinking of his sister.

 _*Hazel._ His beautiful, charming sister who never stopped laughing. She was childish, and extremely immature, but she was the only family he had left.

Had been, He chastised himself. Had been. She wasn't his sister anymore. As far as he and Sector Seven were concerned, Hazel had no living relatives. That very thought is what gave Jason nightmares.

How was she? Did she cry? Did she mourn him? Did she need help? Did she remember to lock the door every time she left the house? Did she make sure to not overcook the fish fillets?

It was questions like those that destroyed Jason Brooks from the inside out. They were the questions that ate his soul - that caused him much stress. Hazel had not only been his little sister, but also his best friend. He was meant to take care of her, to love her like a sibling was meant to. But no, he failed that miserably. And it was all because of that damn alien robot.

"Jesus Epps! It was an alien, move on! We aren't alone in this universe anymore - deal with it. But for the last time, deal with it silently!" Lennox finally snapped. Jason took note of the absolute exhaustion that was etched on the poor soldiers face. The past few months had been living hell for the soldier. He'd lost most of his men and his entire air base, and after that, had been ripped from his family because of Sector Seven. The dude needed to be cut a little slack.

"But-" Epps began, but Lennox cut him off.

"But no, Robert. We lost many people. We lost Ashley. She was still a baby. Her whole life was ahead of her and it was ripped from her grasp. So no, Robert. No more questions. Just silence. Let the Air Marshall speak," Lennox chastised, his voice heavy and solemn. Almost immediately, Epps cast his eyes to the floor, not daring to glance up.

"Ashley?" Jason found himself questioning, much to his and the soldiers' surprise. Lennox's shock quickly faded, and instead he nodded.

"Yeah, she was just a kid. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time," Lennox replied, before turning his gaze towards the window. There was a buzz from the smartphone Jason had left on the table. He glanced over the message, before motioning to the soldiers that they were free to leave.

"Yeah, poor kid," Jason muttered under his breath. His thoughts turned to his own baby sister once more.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

 ***Several Hours Later**

 **Air Force One**

It was night time on Air Force One, the early hours in the morning to be exact. However, the cabin was still abuzz with activity.

"Thank you," A passenger stated as a Steward passed him his drinks. He sent her a flirty smile, which she rolled her eyes to, seemingly used to his antics.

"You're welcome," She smiled as she passed him. Neither of them noticed the rather out of place boombox that was hidden under his seat. Frenzy clicked in annoyance at the humans' antics. He didn't understand the fleshies at all. They were just a primitive race, just like Barricade had told him. Well, aside from one.

Fleshie-con. She was different. She was naive, and so willing to betray her fellow humans. Frenzy thought the whole thing was ridiculous. But, he did like Fleshie-con. She seemed pretty alright.

"Apparently, there were very few survivors," One of the announcers spoke in a hushed voice. Frenzy resisted the urge to transform and tear out her throat. It had been months since the Qatar attacks, yet the squishies were speaking of it as if it had taken place yesterday. And it drove Frenzy insane.

"Yes Mr President?" Tracy, the President's secretary, asked. Frenzy zeroed in on her, knowing that she was his target. She had access to the cargo hold of the plane, meaning that she had access to the supercomputer that contained all of America's hidden secrets.

"Yeah, can you wrangle me up some Ding Dongs, darling?" The President asked, and Tracy nodded, a strained smile plastered on her face. Immediately after she turned away from him, the smile slipped away. She passed Frenzy on her way to the cargo hold, Frenzy quickly transforming to follow her.

"I joined the Air Force to bring the man Ding Dong's," She whispered under her breath, but Frenzy's sensitive audio receptors caught up on it. "I'll be in storage," She spoke louder now, addressing one of the female flight attendants who regarded her with a smile.

Tracy entered the cargo hold softly, and upon her entrance, knocked the cookie from her hand.

"Oh shoot," She whispered before turning around. Frenzy quickly hid from her view as a beatbox. "Oh, gross."

The second her back was turned, Frenzy smirked before plunging his claws into the computer mainframe.

 **MEANWHILE IN THE PENTAGON**

I had to admit, I never knew analysing to be such a boring job.

After countless hours of listen to Blackout's screaming, I resigned myself to using his vocals to make some stupid ass looped song. In basic terms, I autotuned him, and it was hilarious. But that could only be fun for so long.

Once again, I was stuck in a haze of boredom, watching as the hacke- analysts, tapped away at their keyboards incessantly. It blew me away how these people had managed to do this job not just for hours, but for months. Ever since I had joined the decepticon ranks, from what I've heard from Maggie.

Are these people insane?

"Do you hear that? Are you getting that?' She suddenly asked me, causing me to flick my screen back to monitoring the networks. Sure enough, I heard a sound that was similar to the one Blackout had emitted. *Frenzy, I realised. "I think they're hacking the network again," Maggie suddenly exclaimed and I quickly nodded.

"They're hacking the network again!" I confirmed, softly. I watched as everyone continued to tap at their keys, still oblivious to what was unfolding.

"Uh, oh," The male analyst working at out row breathed out.

"Oh god, this is a direct match to the signal in Qatar. Are you running a diagnostic?" She asked the male analyst.

"Should I be?" He asked back, causing both Maggie and I to glare at him. "So I should."

"Somebody! They're hacking into Air Force One! I need a senior analyst, I think they're planting a virus," Maggie called, and suddenly people came at us in a rush.

"A virus?" An officer with large spectacles asked, and we both nodded.

"It's streaming right now. They are planting a virus and stealing a whole lot of data from your system at the same time," I added, and the man looked panicked.

"Get Air Force One on the line, immediately!" He yelled, and we were quickly patched through to the hijacked plane.

"Code Red! We have a breach. Someone on board has breached the military network," The officer barked, and the man on the screen suddenly went as white as a sheet. He nodded numbly before beckoning to some flight crew behind him.

"I'm in the cargo hold! Clear. Clear." An agent called. Damn that was quick.

"You've got to cut the hardlines. Whatever they want, they're getting it!" Maggie warned.

"Sir, permission to take down the Defense Network?" A guy called, but by now, I was hardly focusing.

' **Frenzy's got something. Good work, Fleshie-con. Your government's disorganisation has been of assistance, for once.'** Blackout's smooth voice infiltrated my thoughts. I snorted internally. He was right of course.

' **Maggie is good, Blackout. She knows what she's doing.'** I warned, knowing that he would hear my response. He didn't reply.

"Shots fired in the underdeck! I repeat, shots fired in the underdeck. Crew, prepare for emergency descent." The guy from the screen suddenly screamed, and Maggie glanced to me in fear. I pretended to look scared as I stared back at her, but inside, I felt both guilty and excited at the same time. We were winning, but people were dead.

"I want our President in that bunker. And I don't want to discuss a damn thing other 'till that becomes reality. That;s our first priority, that's our only priority right now." The Secretary of Defense called from the background. My throat clenched. The big boys were starting to get involved now.

A few seconds later, a man called out that Air Force One was on the ground. Everyone relaxed, but I still held my breath anxiously.

' **Calm yourself, fleshling. Frenzy found more information on this Sector Seven, and he's got some approximate locations of Megatron. Barricade is going to have another crack at LadiesMan217.'** Blackout explained. I let out my anxious breath and relaxed into my shoulders.

' **Mission success.'** I grinned. Blackout nodded in agreement. That wasn't actually so bad.


	10. Chapter 10

"Maggie, this is a bad idea - a really bad idea," I started as I hurriedly tried to chase her. Damn, she was a woman on a mission. Maggie didn't even cast me a glance as she continued to storm down the hallway, causing my irritation with the young blonde to grow.

In the short time that I had been here, I had very quickly caught on to the fact that Maggie was not a woman to be messed with. She was as stubborn as a donkey's ass, and she really didn't care how far she had to go to get someone to listen to her - which was mighty terrifying if you asked me.

And right now, Maggie had an idea. It was spot on, I knew that, but only because I am a decepticon. She was smarter then she looked, she could quite possibly be a major threat to our cause.

' **B, I need you to dig up everything on Maggie Madsen.'** I muttered to him, he gave me a noise of agreement in response. My my, who shat in his cornflakes this morning. Blackout heard me, and he laughed, a deep throaty chuckle that caused a small smile to quirk its way on to my face.

Suddenly, Maggie halted, causing me to step right into her.

"Maggie, what the he-" I began, before she turned around and shushed me, giving me an icy glare.

' **She just shushed me!'**

' **I wonder why.'** Blackout bit back sarcastically.

"Can we stop it?" A familiar voice asked. I recognised it immediately as Keller. The officer speaking to him sighed softly.

"Every time we try an antivirus, it adapts and speeds up. It's not like it's a virus anymore. It's become the system," The officer replied. And I stood on my tip toes in order to crane my neck over Maggie's shoulders. The Secretary of Defence rubbed his head with his hand, as if he was trying to suppress a bludgeoning headache.

"Obviously the first phase of a major attack against the US. The only countries with this kind of capabilities are Russia, North Korea, maybe China," Brigham theorised. I resisted the urge to facepalm. _This_ is what happens when trigger happy idiots are put in positions of power.

"I'm sorry, that's not correct," Maggie interrupted. Frag it Maggie!

"Excuse me, young lady, I didn't see you standing there. You would be who?" Brigham bit out dryly, and I could see Maggie's eyes narrow in her reflection on the door.

"Oh you know, just the analyst that detected the hack," She retorted.

"Wait, hold on, that was you?" Keller muttered unintelligently. I rolled my eyes. Yes, Mr Secretary, I thought we had established that.

"Sir, I'm just trying to say that they hacked your firewalls within ten seconds. Even with a supercomputer, no, a brute force of supercomputers - that would take twenty plus years," She reasoned, so I decided to step in.

"They ate through your firewall three point eight million times faster than any other computer. This, virus? Coded itself. The technology needed to be able to accomplish this feat isn't even possible at the moment. So whoever, or should I say whatever, this hack was - it sure as hell ain't any of them."

"Maybe you two can explain then, why our satellite imagery shows North Korea doubling their naval activity?" Brigham bit back, surely pissed.

"Maybe they're just taking a precaution. Isn't that why we're doing?" Maggie asked.

"The signal pattern is learning, it's evolving on its own," I added softly, trying to explain the gravity of the situation and save Maggie's reputation at the same time.

"There's nothing on earth that complex!" The officer exclaimed. Blackout chuckled darkly, reminding me that he could still hear and see everything as I hadn't shut down the link.

"What about an organism? A living organism - some kind of DNA based computer. And I-I know that sounds crazy but-" Maggie started, but a red faced Keller cut her off.

"That's enough! That is enough. We have six floors of analysts working on this thing. Now, if you can find proof to back up your theory, I'm gonna be happy to listen to you. Until then, keep your damn mouths shut or you'll find yourself of the team!"

And with that, Brigham pushed us out the room and slammed the door in our faces.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

"There is only one hacker in the world who can break this code."

Do you remember what I was saying earlier about Maggie being as stubborn as a donkey's ass? Yeah, well she's also as crazy as one, too.

You see, she's come up with this great idea to steal some high tech, extremely dangerous decepticon virus, put it on a freaking _memory card_ and giving it to some random dude named Glenn to hack.

She's going to get us killed.

Together, we walked down the hallway, both of us clocking off for our lunch break as we scurried out of the building. I was beginning to feel quite a bit like a female James Bond.

Not only was a spy, but I was thief now too. Maybe I can add that to my resume. Oh, and my list of felonies.

"Maggie, this is crazy!" I hissed at her, but deep down I was glad. I felt really awkward being cramped in a dark room, surrounded by people who I have technically signed death warrants for. It was nice to be able to have a bit of… interesting in my life.

"Well if you don't like it, turn around and walk away. If you want to come, shut it and hurry up!" Maggie hissed, and I grinned at her, which she quickly returned. We made a fabulous team, I say.

We caught a taxi to this old looking house in the middle of a random neighbourhood. Maggie didn't even pay the fare as she leapt from the car, and I grimaced, thrusting a few notes into the cabbie's hand. As he pulled away, I bolted. I got to the door just as it was opened by a young, slightly overweight man.

Maggie didn't even acknowledge him as she forced her way inside.

"Maggie!" The man exclaimed, looking appalled at her behaviour.

"I'm sorry Glenn, but I need your help," Maggie stated slowly, and Glenn threw his hands up, not even casting me a glance.

"No! This is my private area, my place of Zen and peace," The man bit back, and I was forced to stifle a snort. I doubt that would help the situation, in all honesty. Maggie sent him a sharp look, before turning to me as if looking for someone to back her up.

"Look, I'm sorry man, but this is some highly, messed up shit we need your help with," I offered, and Glenn looked at me as if he was just noticing my appearance.

"Who the hell are you?" He asked, and when I didn't answer, he rounded on Maggie. "Who the hell is she?" He exclaimed, but Maggie didn't listen to him either.

"Listen to me-" Maggie started, before a voice from upstairs interrupted her.

"Glenn, who is it?" The voice called. Glenn froze for a fraction of a second before sighing in annoyance.

"SHUT UP GRANDMA!" Glenn roared, causing me to flinch back in shock. Maggie however, was unfazed. She instead stepped forward, "Look, give me a break-"

"Glenn!" The voice called again.

"GRANDMAMA, DRINK YO PRUNE JUICE!" Glenn screamed, before grabbing our arms and yanking us towards what looked like a nerded out office. He pushed open the door, where I noticed another dude dancing on what looked like a dance pad.

"Oh, here come the matrix! Here come the matrix," Glenn suddenly yelled, and he and the other guy continued to cheer each other on as the guy got a perfect score. I giggled softly, as it reminded me of something me and Jason would do. _Don't think about him now, Hazel._ I chastised softly.

"Glenn, seriously. Don't you wanna see something classified?" Maggie bit out, both stressed and frustrated. That stopped Glenn immediately. He sobered up, pressing pause on the game, much to his friends disgust. His friend quickly left after Glenn promised he would save the game.

"How classified?" Glenn muttered, and I locked eyes with Maggie over the top of his head.

"Like, we will go to jail for the rest of our lives for showing you classified," I whispered, and Glenn's eyes widened.

"Ooh, yes! One quick peek," Glenn muttered, and I rolled my eyes at him. Typical.

He plugged the memory card into his computer before flicking it on. I was met with a big wave of purple and blue lights, not that it meant anything to me.

"Woah, the signal strength is through the roof. Where did you say you got this?" Glenn asked, and Maggie breathed in sharply.

"It hacked the national military air guard frequency in under a minute," Maggie explained.

"No way," He whispered as their eyes connected. I instantly quirked an eyebrow at them. Was something...happening between the two of them? Glenn cast his eyes back to the computer shyly as Maggie breathed out a cool, but flustered, yeah. I grinned at her knowingly as she glanced up at me.

Glenn clicked a button on the computer hurriedly, causing it to zoom in. The signal began to play quietly, and I groaned, the noise already beginning to drive me insane. He zoomed in once more, and I could barely contain my shock as I realised there were symbols hidden within the mass of purple and blue. _Cybertronian._

"There's some kind of code embedded in the signal," Glenn muttered as he and Maggie both leaned towards the screen. I smirked once more, extremely tempted to take a picture of them for later use. "Let me work my magic."

Suddenly, the computer narrowed in on one of the many hieroglyphs. It quickly scanned it, before translating it into the words 'Project Iceman'. My blood ran cold.

' **Oh, shit.'**

' **What is it, femme?'** Blackout responded instantly.

' **Megatron. Sector Seven has Megatron.'**

' **I realise.'** He replied dryly.

' **What do we do?'** I whispered to him, surprising myself by how afraid my voice sounded.

' **They're coming to your position now, you'll meet with them soon enough. Find him, awaken him. And for Primus' sake, stay safe, femme.'** And then the connection was cut off.

Two seconds later, it all went to hell. There was a loud bang, and suddenly, Glenn's friend started screaming. "ARGH! COPS!" He shouted before I heard multiple doors slam as the guy started to run.

"FBI! Clear right," Another voice called, and I realised we were being ambushed. I didn't even have a chance to yell as the door burst open, we were both thrown on the floor. My head slammed into the carpet painfully. My vision blurred for a moment as piercing pain invaded all of my senses. I desperately tried to focus on the moving shapes ahead of me.

"Ow! Get off my Grandma's carpet. She don't like nobody on her carpet, especially police!" Glenn yelled as he struggled violently against the man's grip.

' **Blackout.'** I cried out in fear and pain.

There was nothing but darkness after that.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

Blackout couldn't remember the last time that he had felt this angry.

The rage was consuming him, making him unable to think straight. All he wanted to do was smash something. Destroy something. Kill something, or at the very least, hurt somebody very, very badly. It was this all-consuming rage that powered the decepticon forces, Blackout knew that deep down. But at that moment, all he could think about was the femme fleshie.

' **Blackout.'**

His name. Her last words to him had been his name. Filled with so much fear and pain. The femme had been consumed with blinding pain and fear, and it had destroyed him from the inside.

Because Blackout hadn't told anybody about this yet - but he had a bond with the femme.

He had no idea what it was. Maybe it was a guardian bond. Perhaps it was something more.

Blackout didn't understand it. And Blackout hated things he couldn't understand.

With an enraged growl, Blackout turned around and stalked towards one of the abandoned hangars. Something needed to be destroyed, right now.


	11. Chapter 11

I clutched my head, trying to ignore the throbbing pain that seemed to consume my every thought. The agents really had been none too gentle with us, I thought bitterly. I glanced over at Maggie, who was glaring at a nervous Glenn, whom was scarfing down the entire plate of donuts which had been set in front of us just moments before.

Once Glenn had finished, he turned to us, narrowing his eyes at us slightly.

"Okay, girls, look. Let me break it down to you how it's going to happen. They're gonna waltz in here, playing good cop - bad cop. Don't fall for that, alright? That's why I ate their donuts. You see, it's a test. Testing yo guilt. If you guilty, you don't touch the donuts. I ate the whole plate," He explained before picking up the plate and dropping it lightly. Maggie and I turned to him gobsmacked.

Suddenly the door crashed open and two FBI agents stormed in. It was awkwardly tense for a few moments whilst one of the agents flipped through the files he was carrying.

Then, he threw it on the table with a loud bang, and Glenn immediately jumped up.

"They did it! Both of them. They're the ones you want! All right? I was just sitting at home watching cartoons, playing video games with my cousin, and they came in here. And then…"

"Glenn! You freak," Maggie bit out, mad. I agreed with her, casting Glenn a pointed glare.

"Hey! I am not going to jail for you or anybody else. I ain't never done a bad thing my whole life. Look man, I'm still a virgin - I mean yeah okay I've downloaded a couple of thousand songs from the internet but who hasn't! Who hasn't? I promise," Glenn begged and pleaded. Did he not realise how pathetic he looked right now?

"Shut up!" I screeched at him, but then he lost it.

"No, you shut up! Don't talk to me! Don't talk to me, criminal! Oh, sugar rush," He stated before laying his head on the table. I gawked at him before rounding on the agents.

"Just listen to us, okay? Whoever hacked your military system downloaded a file, all right? It was something about some government agency named Sector Seven and a guy named Witwicky. Look, you have to let us talk to Secretary Keller before he goes to war with the wrong country!" Maggie shrieked. I nodded alongside her. The two agents looked at each other, before nodding.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

And that was how, many hours later, we had found ourselves locked in a car being escorted to a nearby airbase by a bunch of cocky shitheads who were way too big for their britches.

I glared at the two men seated in front of me, both of whom were smirking cockily. One of them noticed this, and he turned to face me.

"Aw, don't cry little girl, it's not our fault you and your lady friend didn't keep your pretty little mouths shut," He cooed sarcastically, before cracking a psychotic smile. I said nothing, instead resolving to glare out of the window instead.

Turns out, Secretary Keller didn't even know about this Sector Seven group. He had chucked a spit when he realised that we were right, and all but demanded to know what we knew about them. We obviously denied having any knowledge of them, and in Maggie and Glenn's cases, this was true.

I however, knew about them. Quite a bit actually, since Blackout had spent the past hour sending me everything he knew about them. And I also knew that they have my brother, but did I say anything? Nah. It wasn't my job. My job was to spy on them, nothing more.

Blackout had gotten a kick out of it when I'd told him that my government was so unorganised they didn't know about half of the secret agencies hidden inside. Starscream and Barricade had also gotten a kick out of it too, moreso when I told them that said agency had arrived and was now transporting us to god knows where.

The decepticons were using this to their advantage. We all knew that these idiots had Megatron stashed away in their hideout. The minute we knew exactly where, well - that's when things would get interesting. The decepticons were keeping a close track on my coordinates, and when we found Megatron, we'd break him out. Thus starting a war between the humans and the decepticons. And then, the autobots would never be able to keep away from a conflict that would harm their precious 'humans'.

We literally were gonna trap them all, plain and simple.

The car came to a sudden halt, and both Maggie and I were manhandled out of the car before being shoved on a helicopter. A pave-low, much like Blackout himself. I was mildly surprised to see Glenn already seated on the flight, followed by two very unconscious teenagers. They were only slightly younger than I was, which was a tiny bit unnerving.

If these guys had no problem beating up some teenage kids, what in the hell were they willing to do in order to get some much needed information from us? Primus knows.

After about an hour of flying, the two teenagers awoke. They panicked for a little while, before they realised we were sitting there. After noting how our hands were also tied up, they visibly relaxed. It was awkwardly silent for a few moments, before Sam spoke up.

"So…" He started, before trailing off, not knowing what to say. Maggie saved him, however.

"What did they get you for?" She asked, kindly.

"Uh- I bought a car. Turned out to be an alien robot," Sam stated, and my eyes almost bulged out of my head. Autobot.

' **Blackout, come in.'** I comm'd, reporting it in.

' **Yes, fleshie-con?'**

' **We have a slight problem.'**

' **Proceed.'**

' **Witwicky is here. His car is an autobot. Fairly certain it's at the base also.'** I explained.

' **Noted.'** Blackout responded before cutting the connection once more. I groaned frustratedly. He was such a pain in the ass ninety-nine percent of the time.

"Who knew?" The kid asked, and I laughed slightly. _Yeah kid, who knew._

A few minutes after that, the helicopter landed. Right smack bang outside of Hoover Dam. I almost laughed, but managed to contain it. Surprisingly, our restraints were removed almost immediately after landing, and I rubbed my wrists slightly. My happiness was short lived however, as a really cocky guy by the name of Simmons approached us.

Now, I rarely hate anyone. But by Primus, did this guy drive me _nuts._ He'd been an absolute asshole to everyone the entire way here, and I was so fed up with him that I would happily put his head through a blender if I could.

This guy was toxic.

I'm actually kind of glad that he's going to either die or be enslaved very soon.

Yeah, he's _that_ much of an ass.

"Hey, kid, I think we got off to the wrong start. You must be hungry? You want a latte? Ho-Ho? Double venti macchiato?" Simmons asked. But I wasn't focused on his conversation. I was more focused on some very familiar soldiers lined up on the other side of the walkway.

Tears filled my eyes as I counted them. Sure enough, they were all there. Will, Epps, Fig and the others. I quickly shut my eyes and turned my attention back to Simmons. He began to show us around, and fear flooded through me when I realised that the soldiers were going to be accompanying us.

I pulled slightly on Maggie's arm.

"Maggie, I'm going to break away from the group. Snoop around, see what we're dealing with. Don't let them know I'm gone," I whispered and she shot me a wicked grin before nodding. As we passed the doors, I slipped to the right and bolted before any of the soldiers could step through the doors.

Once I was far enough away from the group, I began to look around. Turns out, Sector Seven was filled the brim with tonnes of alien tech. And I mean tonnes of it. They had heads, blasters, medical supplies hell they even had energon cubes stored in the most unlikely of places.

Chuckling to myself, I was surprised when I reached two large doors. Cautiously, I pushed them open, shocking myself as I saw what was inside.

Because, being held up by cables and frozen in place - was none other than Megatron.

' **Blackout, I found him. He's being frozen though. If I can break the generator and you disable the power, we'll be able to reawaken him.'**

' **Do it.'** He responded, and I nodded, hurrying. I bolted from the room again, grabbing a large, fancy looking rifle as I ran past. I bolted into a room labeled generator, and I quickly set to work. Two minutes and a hell of a lot of stabbing later, the generators were down.

Seconds after that, the power went down. Picking up my rifle, I grinned to myself before running in the opposite direction as fast as my legs could carry me.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

Elsewhere in the base, things were going from bad to worse extremely fast.

"You got to take me to my car! You have to take me to my car. He's gonna know what to do with the cube," Sam begged Simmons, who glared in response.

"Your car? It's confiscated!" Simmons barked back in return, a vein on his head beginning to jut out as he became more and more stressed. Sam looked pissed.

"Well, unconfiscate it then!" Sam snapped back.

"We do not know what'll happen if we let it near this thing," Simmons yelled.

"Well maybe you do, but I don't!" Simmons growled back in response before taking a threatening step towards the boy.

"You just wanna sit here and see what happens?" Sam bit back. As they continued to argue, nobody knew of the presence of a young, decepticon spy who was watching the disagreement with interest. That was, until someone who used to be close to her heart pulled out his gun.

"Woah! Woah! Woah, easy there. Drop you weapons soldier!" Simmons cried, but Lennox wasn't hearing this. The young spy's heart leapt into her throat as she saw her very own flesh and blood put his own gun against her friend's neck.

"I'm ordering you under S-7 jurisdiction," Simmons tried.

"S-7 don't exist."

"We don't take orders from people who don't exist!"

"I'm going to count to five," Jason stated suddenly, and Hazel felt her blood run cold.

"Well I'm going to count to three," Will spat darkly, cocking his fun and glaring. Hazel stepped out from the shadows.

"And I'm going to count to _**one**_."


	12. Chapter 12

"And I'm going to count to _**one**_."

Everyone in the room froze at the familiar voice. I found myself smirking as they all turned to face me, with many mouths dropping. My eyes made their way over each face, both familiar and unfamiliar. Those who knew me were obviously very shocked to see me there, alive. Those who didn't know me were confused as to why everyone was listening to me. Maggie was the first to talk, interrupting the awestruck silence.

"Ashley! Thank god you showed up. You have to convince this guy to let us have the kid's Camaro," Maggie replied and I nodded once, firmly.

"Ya'll a bunch of sick fucks," I called out, causing the S-7 agents to look at me. "Yo Lennox, they've got freaking heads shoved in glass cages." Simmons eyes widened at that statement. He pointed an accusing finger at me.

"How much did you see!?" Simmons exclaimed and I grinned at him. Tutting slightly, I stroked the barrel of my gun in an effort to intimidate him. When he flinched, I knew it had worked.

"Enough to know that you guys are going to have a helluva lot of explaining to do," I stated nonchalantly. My eyes suddenly snapped to Jason's own, and I could practically see the questions oozing out of his eyes.

"Hazel." He stated, and Simmons eyes suddenly bulged out of his head.

"WHAT?" He yelled, rounding on my brother. My brother didn't break eye contact as he said "That's my sister. The one I left behind."

"Ash, you w-were dead, what?" Lennox said unintelligently. I gave him a goofy grin before shrugging my shoulders. "Turns out, my brothers' ex-helicopter is really bad at killing people."

"Hazel, do you know these men?" Jason asked, his voice coming out evenly and slightly uncaring - which pissed me off, majorly.

"Hazel?" Epps questioned.

"Of course I do, Jason. Now put the damn gun down before I blow his head off," I stated, raising the gun at Simmons once more. Jason's eyes widened like saucers, and he immediately raised his gun in surrender. Will lifted his gun away from Simmons' head also. There was a moment of silence, before I began to speak once more.

"Look, we don't have a lot of time. I know I have a lot of explaining to do, and I promise that at the end of all this, you'll all get your answers. However, there are a load of hostile alien robots heading this way, and the big bad boss bot is about to break out of his cryogenic realm. So, I believe that we don't have enough time to be making idle chit chat," I warned, glancing at Keller. He nodded.

"Losing isn't an option for these guys," He told Simmons, who rolled his eyes.

"Alright, cool. Wanna put the fate of the world in the hands of the kids Camaro? Go for it," He spat sarcastically, but gave his permission nevertheless.

"Ok. Maggie, Glenn, get to the main computer. Here, take this hard drive and get every scrap of information off of it and store it on here. You, go with them," I ordered, pointing at a soldier, "There is no doubt in my mind that they will send someone after this computer. Stop them."

"Kid, go get your Camaro. Then take him to the cube - do what needs to be done. Lennox, go with him. The rest of you, prepare a convoy. Get weapons, whatever you need. You S-7 guys can hold up here and do whatever the heck you like, just don't get in our way," I barked, and they nodded, beginning to head in the directions I'd told them.

"What about you?" Lennox asked.

"I'm going to start getting the military convoy ready. We don't have anything left to lose. If we lose this battle - we lose our planet. Do your best to remember that," I started, before grabbing my rifle. "And one other thing. Red eyes is bad, blue eyes is good. Red eyes? Kill on site. Blue eyes? Leave it be."

"Hey Miss," Simmons annoying voice pierced the air, causing me to sigh and turn to face him.

"What, Simmons?" I asked. He gestured to my gun.

"You're gonna have to leave the EXO922 behind, it's dangerous, S-7 property," Simmons replied uneasily, but I noticed how his eyes filled with greed as they locked in on the sight. I quirked an eyebrow at him.

"In other words he means it's alien," Glenn whisper yelled to Lennox, who snorted. I pretended to ponder it for a moment, before shooting him a wicked grin.

"Nah, it makes me look kinda badass." And then I turned around and stalked off.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

Somehow, I had ended up being a part of the 'Get the Autobot to the Cube Squad' which actually caused me to be a teeny bit miffed, not that I would say anything. I mean, I'm meant to hate this guy.

But he's so freaking adorable!

I mean, look at those big, blue eyes and those little cheeks! He's so cute, how is he terrifying and fierce in any way at all?

Then I remembered that this was the dude who handed Cade's ass to him and laughed. Oh my Primus, 'Cade got beaten by a little kid bot!

I was so gonna tease him about it later.

"Ah, okay. Here we go, here we go. He doin' something," Epps stated nervously. Sure enough, the autoscu-bot, Bumblebee, was doing something to the Cube. It seemed like it was folding in on itself. It was getting smaller, and soon, the once ginormous AllSpark was little more than a metal cube that even I could hold.

"Whoo," Sam breathed.

"Oh my God." That was Mikaela, who was standing next to him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that my brother was lingering near the back of the crowd, his eyes never leaving my figure. He looked pale, as if he had seen a ghost. Then again, he pretty much has. Did he really think that I wouldn't go after him, trying to find answers?

"Message from Starfleet, Captain. Let's get to it," Bumblebee's radio called, and Lennox nodded in agreement.

"He's right. We stay here, we're screwed with Megatron in the other hangar. Mission City is twenty-two miles away. We're gonna sneak that Cube out of here and we're gonna hide it somewhere in the city," Lennox explained, his eyes meeting mine. I nodded at him, and he smiled at me. My heart caught in my chest suddenly as I saw how happy he was to see me alive. How much parental love and adoration was in his eyes.

 _*And I had signed his death warrant._

Tears leapt to my eyes, and he cocked his head slightly in concern. I said nothing, instead giving him a small smile as if to say 'I'm okay' when I really wasn't. I was condemning William Lennox to die. Alongside his wife, Sarah, and their baby girl, who wasn't even a year old, Annabelle. I had agreed to heartlessly slay their entire race, without even thinking of the consequences.

I was a monster.

' **No.'** A soothing voice suddenly flitted into my head. Blackout. ' **You are not a monster, Fleshie-con. You are a decepticon. And you are doing your job. The human may die, yes. But you would be contributing to a better existence.'**

' **Thanks, Blackout.'** I responded, but his attempt at making me feel better really didn't do much. If anything, I felt worse. 'Contributing to a better existence', by sentencing an entire, young family to death or to slavery? That wasn't me. That was the monster I had become.

I didn't blame Blackout though. He doesn't know the first thing about comforting humans, but at least he tried.

I heard a sigh come through the comm. Did he hear all of that?

' **Hazel, I can feel your guilt and self-doubt. Stop it, you're not going to make the situation any better for yourself or others if you cannot think. There is only a twenty-five percent chance of the world becoming enslaved by Megatron. Our aim is only to find the AllSpark and return it to our home planet. Hazel Brooks, you are a Decepticon now. Stop letting petty human emotions rule you and your judgement. These people abandoned you, left you to die. They are no longer your comrades, Decepticon! Know your place, fight for your cause. You are no longer a human being of the Planet Earth. You are a Decepticon, from Cybertron. Start acting like one.'** He growled, causing me to stop abruptly. He was right.

I am Hazel Brooks, decepticon spy and advisor of Blackout.

I'm not just another human anymore.

I'm a member of something far bigger than Earth.

I am a Decepticon.

Determination burned within me as I nodded softly to myself.

* _Blackout._ I thought to myself. Why was he so nice to me? From day one, he had always treated me well. He'd never been ill towards me. Which was strange, because Decepticons were often thought to be evil. But Blackout, Blackout wasn't like that. No, he wasn't like that at all. He was different.

Suddenly, it felt as if Blackout was in the room with me, as if I could feel his presence. It was as if… as if we were connected somehow.

It was impossible to explain, but I could feel the bond. It was as if it was, something I could touch. Something binding us together. Hesitantly, I felt at the bond, and was shocked to feel that my prodding was returned.

' **Blackout...what-'** I went to ask.

' **Focus femme.'** He muttered harshly, but on further prodding of the bond, I realised that he wasn't mad at all. He was almost...nervous. And that frightened me greatly.

"Sir, you are going to have to figure out some way to get word out to them. Let's move!" Lennox called, snapping me from my thoughts. They spoke about some sort of 'alien archive' for a few moments before finally coming to an agreement. I wasn't paying attention however, instead I was trying to prod the bond more.

"Hazel, Sam, get in the car! Mister Secretary! Get our birds in the air. When we get to the city, we're gonna find a radio, and I'll have Epps vector them in," Lennox called. And Keller nodded in agreement. Sam and Mikaela make a quick break for Bumblebee, and I follow them.

"Set a perimeter around that yellow vehicle!" Lennox screamed. But Bumblebee didn't wait, instead he took off, peeling out of the S-7 base faster than you could say burrito.


	13. Chapter 13

**Alright so this is the latest chapter, the one that wasn't published in the old Torn.**

 **To be brutal, it's intense. Enjoy ^-^**

* * *

Seated in Bumblebee, I crushed the AllSpark to my chest softly, paying it no mind as it sent me short, sharp zaps rhythmically. It didn't seem to be harming me at all, so I decided against mentioning it to the autobot. It would be bad if I had to give up ownership of the AllSpark so soon after I had gotten it.

"There's Optimus!" Sam suddenly called, and I cursed softly. They were already here, damn it.

' **Where the hell is that stupid autoscum?'** A new voice cut through my head, causing me to reel back in shock. _*Bonecrusher?_

' **Focus, 'Crush! We're narrowing in on Hazel's position now.'** It was Barricade this time.

What the hell was this? Is Blackout beaming the messages to me or something?

Then it clicked. The All Spark. The All Spark has given me access to all of the decepticons comm links. It knows, the Cube knows.

So why is it helping me?

"Patience, young one." The Cube voiced. My eyes widened before snapping up towards Sam. He didn't even blink. I'm the only one who heard the Cube. I didn't have time to dwell on this now. The Cube continued to zap me softly, but I took no notice of it. Instead, I connected to the comm link.

' **Guys, hurry. Prime and the rest of 'em are already here providing support.'** I stated softly, and I felt Blackout's shock through our bond. It was silent for a few moments, before surprisingly, Bonecrusher spoke up.

' **Fleshie?'**

' **The one and only! I have the All Spark in my hands. I think it's done something to me. I don't know. Just, hurry guys. Prime's approaching fast.'** I explained quickly. And Barricade ordered them to hurry up. I breathed out softly, relaxing more into Bumblebee's seat.

Bumblebee vibrated slightly, much like Blackout would do when he was trying to make me relax or fall asleep. It was nicer when Blackout did it though.

"AUTOSCUM!" Bonecrusher's voice cut through the air like a bullet. He was speaking in cybertronian, and telling by the confused, yet fearful looks Mikaela and Sam were sharing - I was the only one who could understand him. Stifling my grin, I pretended to look as frightened as they were.

"No, no, no, no," Sam chanted, causing Mikaela to look at him fearfully.

"What?" She shrieked, grabbing at his hand.

"It's the same cop car from before! Block them. Block them. Block them," Sam screamed, and I turned to look out of the back window, giving a small smile when I saw the familiar cop car I had come to see as my brother.

' _Cade,_ I thought affectionately.

"Who?" I shrieked for effect.

"That cop car, you see that one there? Bad cop, bad cop!" Sam yelled, repeating himself over and over. I looked out of the window to see all of the ground vehicles approaching. Bonecrusher, Barricade and Brawl (who I had learned the autobots/humans also called 'Devastator').

Bonecrusher began to use his scoop to throw cars out of the way. I flinched, feeling guilty for all of the death that was occurring at our hands.

' **Not now, Femme!'** Blackout roared. Okay, okay. I clenched my fists together and shut my eyes, trying desperately to calm myself.

" _Jace, what is it like to be in a war?" I asked my brother wearily as we talked over skype. The screen flickered for a moment, and I saw that he was in deep thought, pondering his words. It was silent for a few more moments before he said;_

" _Haze, it ain't like nothin' you've ever seen. Nothing you ever want to see. You never wanna see a war, Hazel. Never."_

My eyes flashed open once more, and I felt more determined. Twisting in my seat, I turned to see Bonecrusher transform.

I marvelled as every piece on his large frame twisted and melded together perfectly.

"Oh my God," Mikaela bit out, and I watched as Bonecrusher growled before yelling, 'Prime!'

As he said that, Optimus broke from our little 'posse'. His back wheel arches began to twitch violently, before he too was transforming into his bipedal mode.

"Shit," I breathed as Optimus turned around mid-transformation in preparation to take on Bonecrusher, who had smashed his way through a bus - splitting it clean in two.

Optimus barely had time to get ready as Bonecrusher leaps into him, tackling him off the side of the freeway, they fell together.

We continued to barrel down the curving highway, which I was thankful for, because it gave us a full view of what was happening with Prime and 'Crusher. My heart leapt into my throat as Bonecrusher landed horribly, allowing Prime to get the upper hand on him. Prime crashed on top of Bonecrusher, and immediately began to punch him.

Crusher socked him the face, before Prime elbowed him, causing his face to contort unnaturally. Then, they both fell once more onto the next tier.

"Bumblebee! Speed up! Optimus might need us," Mikaela screamed, and the autobot scout was quick to oblige. The entire entourage of autobots increased their speed greatly, so much so that my head felt like it was being sucked into Bumblebee's seats.

We came around the corner once more, and Prime and Crusher seemed to be squaring each other off. Prime ripped his arm off, and I almost screamed.

Then, Primes blade went right through the side of 'Crusher's head.

' **NO!'** I screamed through the comm, and Blackout's fear increased ten fold through the bond.

' **Hazel? Hazel, answer me!'** Blackout roared, and I quickly sent him soothing waves through the bond. His fear quickly left him.

' **Bonecrusher?'** I tried softly, zoning in on a private comm. To my surprise he answered me.

' **F-F-F-Fleshie-e-e.'** He croaked, and my eyes widened in shock. Prime dropped him, before turning towards us, he motioned for us to keep going forward.

' **Barricade! Bonecrusher is alive, barely, but he's alive!'** I called out to him, it was silent for a few moments.

' **So?'** He replied, nonchalantly. He sounded as if he didn't care.

' **So? SO? Barricade you have to help him!'** I screamed at him.

' **Fleshie, this is a war. Comrades die. Big deal. You'll get used to it soon enough.'** He stated, monotonously. This was not the 'Cade I knew. This was some kind of, war made monster.

' **Barricade!'** I bit out, angered. But, his decision was made for him as suddenly, he was knocked sideways onto another highway. One that was heading away from mission city, but straight for Bonecrusher.

' **Barricade.'** I tried again, keeping my eyes on his now retreating figure. ' **Help him.'**

' **Okay.'** He replied, and I breathed out in relief. He might not be able to save him, but at least 'Crusher would have someone with him.

' **Bonecrusher.'** I breathed out, into our private comm. ' **Barricade's coming for you. Don't worry, everything is going to be okay. You did good, okay? You did good.'** I soothed.

' **H-H-Hazel.'** He replied, but he sounded extremely weak. Scared out of my mind, I continued to talk to him.

When I was being trained by the decepticons, being prepared for war. There was no amount of preparation that could prepare you for this. You're not taught how to console a dying comrade, how to keep someone calm, how to help a comrade who is seriously wounded have hope. This, this is something that can only be learned through experience. Horrific experiences.

It was only just occurring to me now, that Bonecrusher, as rude and grouchy as he was - was my family. And now, I'm on the verge of losing him, just like I've lost everyone else.

What the hell do you say to someone who's dying? There's so much you want to say… but so little ways to say it. Time, something that seems to go on forever, is little more than a few moments, a few minutes tops. You don't know how much time you have. It's a terrifying prospect. One that can make a battle hardy soldier, mind numb.

' **I've got him.'** Barricade called out softly, and I knew this was it. This was the last time we'd communicate whilst Barricade was focusing on the immense task of getting 'Crusher to safety.

' **Be safe, 'Cade. Please be safe. I'll be seeing you soon.'** I cried out softly, and it was taking everything in my power to stop myself from blubbering all over Bumblebee's seats. Now, _that_ I doubt would go down too well. The little autosqueak would freak, and be hella confused too.

It was silent for a minute more, before Barricade's soft, smooth voice filtered back into my thoughts. ' **You too, Fleshie-con.'** He then added on a more serious note, ' **I mean it Hazel. You better come back in one piece.'**

And then the connection was severed.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ /

 _No amount of training would ever prepare you for a war._

Yeah, there was no doubt in my mind that this was true.

When I'd stepped out of Bumblebee, alongside Sam and Mikaela, ready to re-group and prepare for a fight, I'd been expecting some minute of silence Braveheart speech.

Not this.

Not the screaming.

Not the pain.

Not the ferocity, or the noise.

Not the sound of death and chaos.

I had been expecting many things, but I hadn't been expecting this.

"Come on! Let's go. Mount up!" Lennox roared, but even his voice sounded inferior in comparison to the chaos around him. His voice was almost completely drowned out by the sounds of panic.

"Move out! Move out! Go go go!" A soldier screamed as they began to prepare themselves.

Epps and Will said a few more things, but I wasn't focusing on them at all. Instead, my eyes were locked on an approaching figure.

"F-22, twelve o'clock!" Epps yelled, and I swallowed slightly. It was flying too low. Way too low to be a friendly.

' **Prepare yourself, Fleshie-con.'** Oh, _shit._

"Raptor, Raptor, do you copy? We have you visual. Green smoke is the mark. Provide air cover and vector Black Hawks for extraction," Epps ordered into the radio. There was no response obviously, and the F-22 continued to gain on us.

"It's Starscream!" Ironhide, the weapons specialist which of whom I had heard plenty about, roared. He turned around and began to run.

"Back up! Take cover!" He ordered, and suddenly, there was chaos. Screaming, civilians and soldiers ran in all sorts of directions. There was panic as we all rushed to get off the street. I was just behind Sam and Mikaela when Starscream fired.

The three of us were sent flying forward, and the my side screamed with pain, like it always did when it came into contact with heat. Heat engulfed my body as I hit the pavement with a bang.

It was as if the whole world had frozen. Everything was blurry, and really...distant almost.

I felt woozy as my eyes tried to focus on the two squirming figures ahead of me.

 _"Blackout! Stop it, that tickles!"_

" _I'm going to turn you into SCRAP!" Blackout roared, I couldn't take him seriously. Instead, I erupted into giggles. It's hard to take a sparkly, pink decepticon serious._

_._._

"' _Cade, wait up!" I called. Barricade stopped immediately before turning around to face me. His holograms eyes filled with warmth._

" _What's up, femme?"_

" _Can you help me prank Starscream?"_

_._._

" _YOU INSOLENT FOOLS!" A high pitched voice screamed from the other side of the base, causing me to laugh. Hidden in the vents, Frenzy and I shared a quick brofist as we watched Starscream scream and parade around in fury._

" _YOU DARE COMPARE ME, THE MIGHTY LORD STARSCREAM, TO A TORTILLA CHIP?"_

_._._

" _Blackout, I can't sleep." I muttered softly, cringing as my side burned with relentless agony. He sighed softly, before transforming into his alt mode. The door to the passenger side of the chopper popped open, and I climbed in wearily._

 _The weariness soon left me however, as with Blackout's soothing humming - I was out within seconds.*_

Jasons' face appeared in my vision. He was yelling something at me. I couldn't hear him however, only see his lips moving. Jason? How did Jason get here? I thought he was staying at the base.

Will quickly joined him, grabbing my hands. Will crouched down in front of my face and barked something at me, but again I didn't hear it. Suddenly, my vision started to clear and I began to hear again. My side broke out in agony.

"-ut you have to listen to me, Ashley. We need you. You need to help Sam with the Cube!" Will was saying. Oh yes, the Cube. I must've dropped it. My head lolled to the side lazily as I saw Sam clutching the Cube tightly to his chest.

"You're a soldier now, Ashley." I know I am Lennox. I'm a decepticon now. "We need you, Ash." I nodded to him, before using Jason to pull me up. Will nodded at Jason, before running to his men.

"Hazel, hey hey hey, Hazel," Jason whispered, trying to get me to focus on his face. I turned my eyes away from Sam, who was now trying to urge Bumblebee to get up. The autobot was missing his legs. I was kind of glad, this way he couldn't hurt any of my comrades.

 _My family._

"Look, I know things have been rough but you have to know this. I love you Hazel, you're my baby sister. I have no idea how you found me, or why the hell you know about all of this, but I am so glad. I'm so proud of you, Haze. And I'm so glad that you found me. I love you, baby sis. I love you so much. Now go out there, and show these decepti-freaks what the human race is made of," Jason whispered, and I nodded, before turning around to join Sam. The pain in my side was distracting me badly, so I tried to block it out as I approached him.

"I'm not gonna leave you," Sam was saying to the critically injured bug. I moved towards him, grabbing his shoulder lightly. He didn't look at me as he passed me the cube.

"Come at me, you Decepticon punk!" Jazz, another autobot, suddenly yelled. My head snapped to where his voice was coming from. I noticed that Brawl was at the end of the street, taking on both him and the weapons specialist.

Jazz leapt on to Brawl, who suddenly transformed. They clawed at each other, before Brawl was thrown across the street.

"Concentrate your fire!" Will screamed, and then, Brawl fell. I screamed, loudly.

 _"Brawl! Come on Brawl! Again, again!" I laughed as he tossed me up into the air before lightly catching me once more._

" _Blackout, 'Cade! Look what me and Brawl can do!" I yelled, and they both turned to face me. Blackout smiled softly at my expression, whilst 'Cade grinned wickedly._

_._._

 _"Click, squeak, click click click," Blackout tried again. He was saying something in Cybertronian, trying to teach me how to understand it. I looked at him blankly._

" _K-K-Kuwait, brah?" I gussed. Blackout literally facepalmed._

" _No, that was Starscream in Cybertronian, Fleshie."_

" _Oh. Frag this! I can't do it at all!" I stated. I swear Blackout's optics bulged out of his head._

" _Fleshie-con, who taught you that?" His voice was dangerously low. My eyes glanced at 'Cade and Brawl, who were sitting at the table next to us. Their optics widened. Blackout followed my gaze and turned on them with a menacing growl. "WHO?" He roared._

' _Cade and Brawl immediately pointed at each other._

_._._

 _Tap, tap, tap. I instantly shot awake. Turning to my right, I was surprised to see Brawl tapping on the conference room window. I turned at my head at him in confusion, and he gestured for me to come outside with him. I followed him, happily._

 _We walked until we came to my plane hangar. "Fleshie, I made you something!" He stated. I raised my eyebrow at me._

" _You woke me up at twelve AM 'cause you made me something, Brawl?" I asked. He nodded, like an excited kid on christmas eve. He passed me a box, opening it up, I found a hand carved knife, covered with intricate patterns, alongside a matching gun._

" _Brawl, this is-" I began, but he cut me off._

" _HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FLESHIE-CON!"_

* * *

 **Who died a little whilst reading this? I most certainly did whilst writing it, that's for sure :'( Much sadness at this time.**

 **Gonna go and have a major cry now.**

 **~Rei**


	14. Chapter 14

**It's been over a month, I'm sorry /3. But, I wanted to write a whole heap of this story. So now, chapters 14-28 are complete, edited and ready to be posited ;) Expect twice weekly updates from now on!**

* * *

There was no time to mourn the loss of my comrade, my Brawl. I had a few seconds to stare at his darkened optics, before we were running once more. Megatron had arrived.

"Megatron!" He bellowed, before he clicked; "It's time to die, Autoscum!" In Cybertronian. With those words, we bolted. I ran to Sam, who was running for Mikaela. Desperately shaking the image of Brawl's darkened optics from my mind, I caught up to them, before another voice caught me off guard.

"It's Megatron! Retreat!" Jazz yelled.

"Fall back, fall back!" That must be the CMO, Ratchet.

"Retreat!" Jazz directed to us before he took on Megatron himself. That fool!

"That all you got, Megatron?" Jazz yelled in my leaders face. Megatron regarded him for a moment, but if anything, he looked almost bored. Jazz must've picked up on this, as he began to antagonise the decepticon master once more.

"Come here, you little cretin," Megatron boomed, but he lacked any real emotion. He sounded fake. Everything about him seemed fake. It was in that moment that I decided I didn't like him all too much. But he was my leader now, so I had to respect him. If he doesn't kill me the first chance he gets.

"You want a piece of me? You want a piece?" The little autobot screamed. Megatron didn't even blink as he grabbed both Jazz's legs and his head.

"No, I want two!" Megatron bellowed, before ripping the smaller autobot in half. Megatron threw both pieces in different directions, and I heard Bumblebee cry out. I looked at the ground and smirked slightly. Karma's a bitch, isn't it? Well that's what you get for killing Brawl.

"What's going on?" Lennox yelled from my left towards his men.

"Sir! The helicopter dude's arriving!" A soldier yelped back, I think his name was Burke or something. When he said that, my blood turned to ice. No, Blackout! Panic flooded through me as I bolted towards where Lennox, Burke and Jason were standing, eyes widening as I took in the approaching helicopter.

As if sensing my panic, Blackout tried to calm me through the bond.

 **'Hazel.'** He murmured softly through the comm. Tears sprung to my eyes when I realised how resigned his tone was. He didn't think we were going to make it out of this, either.

 **'Blackout.'** I croaked back to him, heart hurting.

 **'You need to listen to me, go to Sam. No matter what happens. No matter what happens to me, or to Starscream, I need you to promise me you'll run, okay? You need to stay safe, Hazel. I'll never forgive myself in anything happens to you.'** His voice was low and his tone was soft. I didn't bother to hold back the tears that were now running down my face.

 **'No, Blackout. I'm not going to leave you. Please don't make me leave you.'**

' **Fleshie.** ' He used my nickname affectionately. **'I know you feel the bond, and I can't explain it to you right now, but I need you to live. I need you to survive, Hazel. And you may not understand why, but you have too, okay? I want you to live a full life, one that is plentiful - no matter what happens today. I need you to promise me, okay? Promise me you'll live, Hazel.** ' I choked on a sob as I nodded.

 **'I promise. But please, try to live for me. Fight for me, Blackout. You better come back to me,** otherwise **I will be so pissed.'** I cried, and I heard his deep, masculine chuckle filter through the comm.

'Okay, Hazel. I will try, for you.' He stated, before pausing. 'One more thing.' He started, as he transformed and dropped from the sky, right into the middle of the battlefield. 'I'm really glad I picked you up in Qatar.' And then, all hell broke loose.

"We're gonna die," Lennox muttered to himself before he turned towards Sam and I.

"Where's the Cube?" He asked, and I lifted my hands, signalling that I held the Cube safely in my arms. His shoulders seemed to sag in relief, and I tried to ignore the men who were desperately firing on my Blackout behind him.

"Okay," He nodded.

Sam nodded in affirmation, before turning around to Mikaela once more, trying to direct her on how to tie the autobot scout to the tow truck he was currently lying on.

"Epps! Get those Black Hawks here, that building," Lennox ordered before pointing at one of tallest buildings in the area. I tilted my head at him, and as if noticing the question in my eyes, he grabbed Sam by the shoulders and ripped him away from the scout and the girl.

"What?" Sam questioned, slightly annoyed.

"Look, I can't leave my guys back there, so here, take this flare," He stated before thrusting the flare into Sam's arms. "Okay, see that tall, white building over there? The one with statues on top? Go to the roof. Set the flare. The Black Hawks will come to you," He ordered. Sam blanched, I however nodded, knowing that it was my only chance to get the AllSpark to Starscream and Megatron.

"No," Sam stated immediately, and I resisted the urge to slap him up the head.

"Signal the chopper and set the flare-" Will continued, but Sam cut him off with his 'no's' once more. Will grabbed Sam's shirt, pulling his face close to his own. Obviously annoyed, Will glared him down.

"Listen to me! You're a soldier now! All right? I need you to take this Cube. Get it into military hands while we hold them off, or a lot of people are going to die!" Will hissed, and Sam shrunk back slightly. He let go of Sam's shirt before rounding on Mikaela.

"You need to go," He started, but she quickly told him no.

"Sam," I whispered softly. I made my eyes appear wide and innocent. None threatening. Just like Barricade had taught me. "Sam. We need to go. We gotta get to that building. Otherwise, everyone is going to die," I gestured for Mikaela, "Including her."

His gulped loudly. His eyes raked Mikaela's figure, and after a few seconds of careful debation, he sighed and nodded. I grinned at him, before throwing a thumbs up towards Lennox.

"Sam, we will protect you. And Ashley," Ironhide responded, and I almost laughed at the use of my alias instead of my real name. I guess he only knows one. Ironhide turns his gaze to me, and I force a smile onto my face. Blackout had told me plenty of horror stories about the weapons specialist, who just moments ago had mercilessly gunned down my friend. It took all of my willpower not to scowl at him.

"Okay," He responded.

"Epps, where are those planes?" Will asked, eyes narrowing at his friend. Epps shrugged his shoulders, before radioing them again, this time a lot more desperately.

"Sam!" Mikaela called, running up to the boy in question. She put her head against Sam's own, and sighed into him, hugging him softly.

"No matter what happens, I'm really glad I got in that car with you," She whispered, panting from her run. My heart clenched, *I'm really glad I picked you up in Qatar.

She had used Blackout's line. My anger flared up. Even if she had no idea, she didn't have the right to use that line.

"Sam! Ashley! Get to the building!" Ironhide screamed, and Sam immediately took off running. I, however, lingered for a few more moments. Long enough to see everyone start to run towards Blackout, away from Brawl's body. Sam and I ran with them, with Ironhide (who was doing this ridiculous rolling thing as he ran) and Ratchet, following behind.

"Watch out!" Ironhide yelled as Sam almost ran straight into Blackout's foot - or ped, as they call them. Screaming, I grabbed Sam and dragged him away from Blackout. Now, Ironhide and Ratchet were attacking him. My Blackout, and there was nothing I could do.

What made it worse was the fact that I could feel everything. I could feel every strike through the bond. I could feel his emotions, how much pain he was in. How scared he was for my wellbeing. His sadness for Brawl. His respect for his leader. It was all flooding in through the bond.

As if sensing my hesitation, Blackout rounded at me, and pointed his cannon directly at Sam and I. 'Hazel, MOVE!' He yelled, before shooting the building behind us. Sam and I started bolting again, terrified. Well, he was. I wasn't. Blackout suddenly threw Ironhide away from him, before leaping into the air and transforming back into a helicopter. He flew off, away from us, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

There was a loud crashing noise, and I glanced into the street next to us to see that Optimus and Megatron were already tearing each other apart.

"Keep moving! Don't stop," Ironhide screamed at us. Damn, was he a bossy bot.

Hahaha, bossy bot. I crack myself up at the worst of times.

Sam and I continued to run, with me clutching the Cube to my chest once more. It was now throbbing again, but this time, it was a lot more powerful. Powerful enough to distract me from the agonising pain in my side.

"Woah!" Sam screamed, shaking me from my thoughts. Starscream had landed right in front of us, knocking a huge wave of sparks and cars right in our direction. Screaming, I ducked my head, but it was no use. Sam and I hit the tarmac hard, and began to slide towards him.

I landed on my burning side. The bitchumen tearing up all of my scar tissue and causing me to writhe in pure, blinding agony.

"Argh!" I screamed as writhed. I tried to hold back the pain, but I couldn't. It flung into the bond, and I could feel the panic from Blackout's side in return. Sam, as if being awaken from a dream, commando crawled towards me. I saw the fear in his eyes as he positioned himself next to me.

"Oh - shit, Hazel," Sam bit out as he went to touch my wound. I pushed him away, trying desperately to stop screaming. I could feel my shirt beginning to become heavy with blood. I knew, deep down, that I was seriously injured. Frag.

"Ratchet!" Sam screamed in a desperate attempt to get the CMO's attention. However, the pain began to dull down slightly. It felt, as if it was being… sucked away.

Blackout.

He was taking on some of my pain. He was taking away some of my agony.

"Sam, the building!" Ironhide yelled. Sam looked at me, his eyes darkening slightly.

"I'm sorry," He whispered, before wrenching the AllSpark from my grip. My eyes widened as I went to grab it from him, but he was too quick. He turned and began sprinting away.

 **'Starscream! Sam's got the AllSpark.** ' Starscream stopped shooting for a moment, seemingly shocked before scowling.

' **Well do something about it Fleshie-con! Or are you too weak?'** He seethed, and I felt like I had been shot.

Clenching my teeth, I forced myself to sit up. Trying my hardest not to let the pain consume me, I began to run. My vision kept drifting. Becoming blurry one moment, and clear the next. I was almost delirious with pain, but I had a mission. I knew I had a mission. I had to get to Sam. I had to get the AllSpark back. I had to return it to Megatron, it's rightful owner.

I saw Starscream land behind Sam and I once more, however this time, Sam dropped the Cube. As it hit the floor, it sent out this weird shockwave, one that travelled into all of the nearby objects. I picked up the Cube once more, and both of us high-tailed it towards the building. Sam began to scream when he realised that all of the electronic devices nearby were coming alive.

And they weren't very friendly, to say the least.

They began to shoot the slag out of everything in the vicinity of them. People, cars, buildings. It didn't matter what it was, as long as it was destroyed two seconds later it was all good.

They were like mini Decepticons, which was really strange to comprehend.

Well at least it was, until one creepy little xbox decided to start shooting the hell out of Sam and I.

We finally made it to the building, and Sam pulled the Cube from my grip once more. He began to run up the stairs, with me hot on his heels.

"He's not going to get us. He's not going to get us," He chanted over and over, pissing me off greatly. Of course he was going to get us, dumbaft. He's the bloody leader of the Decepticons. Megatron makes Barricade look like a chew toy, and we all know how terrified of 'Cade you are.

"I smell you, boy," He roared slightly, before starting to talk in Cybertronian.

"You and your pathetic race must perish!"

Sam's eyes widened at the close proximity of Megatron, and grabbed my arm before yanking me up the stairs faster. "Maggots," Megatron growled, causing Sam to look at me in terror.

We ran onto the roof, and Sam instantly began to cry out like an idiot 'Hey, heey! I'm over here. I'm here!"

Which of course attracted the attention of Megatron.

The Black Hawk lowered towards us, and Sam immediately reach out for them.

"We've got the kids," One of the soldiers radioed, before Sam realised that Megatron was about to shoot them.

"Watch out!" He yelled.

"Missile!" One of the Black Hawk men roared. They never stood a chance, in all honesty. The missile clipped the back of the chopper, blowing off the tail. They fell, fast.

"Hang on, Sam! Ashley!" Optimus roared from below as we were forced further and further onto the ledge of the building. Finally, Sam was clutching to a pillar for dear life, whilst I was clutching the pillar next to him.

"Is it fear or courage that compels you, fleshlings?" Megatron roared, and I suddenly realised that he had no idea that I was the Decepticon spy. Oh, Jesus.

"Give me the AllSpark and you may live to be my pet!" He roared, snapping his claw fingers greedily. Sam's eyes met mine, and I could see the complete and utter panic contained within them.

"Woah! Oh, no no no," I chanted as I slipped slightly, grabbing at the statue tightly. From where I was, I could clearly see Blackout blasting Will's men apart. I was worried for a moment, but he seems like he's got no issues over there whatsoever.

"I'm never giving you this AllSpark!" Sam roared in a moment of confidence. I almost slapped him.

I mean, yes, Megatron is my leader and all so I shouldn't really be fearful of him but at that moment no one has bothered to tell him not to hurt the female squishy, so as far as he's concerned I'm fair game. So with that being said, Sam would do better to keep his mouth shut.

"Oh, so unwise," Megatron sighed, before lifting up his steel ball of doom. I knew almost instantly what he was going to do.

 **'BLACKOUT!'** I screamed, and his head snapped to where I was gripping on for dear life. Then, there was a loud crash, and I was falling.

 **'NO!'** He roared through the main comm.

 **'What?** ' Megatron growled, and it was almost comical.

"I've got you kids!" Optimus yelled, and grabbed us out of the air. Relief flooded through me. That's the only time I'm ever going to be thankful for an autobot, I swear.

 **'** Urm **, Lord Megatron, sir. You** just, **knocked our spy off of a building.'** Starscream explained rather sheepishly. Megatron said nothing in return, but I saw his optics trail to my figure, regarding me with burning curiosity. I resisted the urge to wave at him.

"Hold on to the Cube," Optimus said, and then we were abseiling. It went great for about thirty seconds, before Megatron bitch-slapped Optimus off the building. We hit the floor with a thud, and Optimus turned to us, quickly.

"Sam, Ashley. You risked your lives to save the Cube," Optimus stated, as if he was shocked. I went to say something before I was distracted by Megatron. Some guy was running around in the background screaming 'Oh no, oh no, oh no!'

So Megatron decided to flick him, sending him flying into a parked car. "Disgusting," Megatron spat out, causing me to almost laugh.

"No sacrifice, no victory," Sam repeated to Optimus, as if the infamous Witwicky catchphrase was going to make everything a-okay.

"If I cannot defeat Megatron, you must push the Cube into my chest. I will sacrifice myself to destroy it. Get behind me," Optimus ordered, and I already wanted to barf. I've been with this dude all of two minutes, and I already wanted to bang my head into a pole half a million times.

Sam grabbed my arm, pulling us behind an old taxi. Gripping my burning side, I panted harshly. Blackout was getting distracted, the pain was beginning to worsen again.

'Are you ok?' Sam mouthed, and I nodded, putting on a fake, strained smile on my face. He still looked nervous, but didn't question it.

"It's you and me, Megatron!" Prime roared.

"No, it's just me, Prime!" Megatron snapped back.

It actually wasn't that hard to believe they were brothers.

"Sam, you know what you need to do. I'm going to go help Will. Good luck," I whispered at him, before bolting. Sam went to yell my name, but he was distracted by Megatron landing right near him. Just before I turned the corner, I saw him running towards a large crack in the road. Found a place to hide, good for him.

Turning into an alleyway, I ran straight into Will and the others. It was silent for a moment, before Blackout landed in the open street. He walked calmly and leisurely towards the Autobots at the end of the street. He hadn't seen us.

'Blackout, keep walking. Whole squad of soldiers behind you, they know how to take you down now. Please, be safe.' I whispered to him. His steps didn't slow as he heard me.

'Are you alright?' He responded.

"I'm fine, now focus, Blackie. These guys are the real deal.' He gave a slight nod as he walked, affirming that he realised the severity of the situation.

Will got on a nearby bike, firing it up. Whilst Epps pointed a green light at Blackout's legs. My blood ran cold when I realised what they were planning to do, but I was too late to warn him.

Actually, he warned himself.

Epps accidentally brings the laser too high, and Blackout notices the green dot immediately. He rounds on us, glaring at Epps before raising his cannon.

"Move out!" Epps yelled, and we all dispersed as fast as possible. Blackout began to shoot the cars nearby, and we screamed, running in every direction possible.

'Stop screaming, Hazel. You're putting me off cause I think I'm hurting you.' He told me through the comm link, shutting me up mid scream.

"Incoming!" Epps screamed, and Will suddenly started to drive towards Blackout. Blackout began to fire at him. I noticed the incoming missiles before Blackout did.

Will twists his bike on to the side, and begins sliding in between Blackout's legs.

"NO!" I scream, and Epps grabs me, telling me that Will is going to be okay. Yes, I know that Will is going to be okay, you stupid fragger. But what about my Blackout?

The missiles hit Blackout front on, causing him to stagger forward, at just the right angle for Will to land a direct hit on his sensitive wires. He explodes forward, and I can feel his agony through the bond.

Will is laughing like a madman as he continues to slide. But, Blackout, Blackout falls. His optics offline.

For a split second, it feels like my entire world has ended. Everything that was important to me, ceases to exist. My very being, the very reason I existed, just...disappeared. The will to live suddenly dies within me. I go to scream once again, when a familiar nudge at the bond stops me.

 **'Blackout?'** I whisper in disbelief.

 **'The one and only, Hazel.'** He responds. And although he sounds exhausted, he is most definitely alive.

There is an explosion of missiles, as suddenly the entire air becomes a battlezone. The men run towards where Megatron and Optimus are fighting, whilst air support take on Starscream.

 **'Blackout, go. Now! Whilst they are distracted. You have to go!'** I order, and suddenly, his optics online again.

There is not a seconds pause before he transforms and takes off into the air, bolting away at inhuman speeds. Relief fills me as I know he's safe and sound. He'll find Barricade. He'll be okay.

"No Sam!" Optimus cries, and I turn to face him. My jaw drops as Sam forces the Cube into Megatron's chest. No! Megatron! I voice through the comm. His optics snap to me.

He grabs at his chest for a few, fleeting moments, before falling forward with a painful groan. Then, the great Decepticon leader is no more. Optimus approaches his dead brother's body, and kneels, looking devastated for a second.

"You left me no choice, brother," He whispers.

A blinding, agonising rage begins to consume me. How dare he? That, that, sentimental ass of a robot! How dare he. How dare he stand there over my fallen leader and pretend to feel in the least bit guilty for his mighty's passing?

Fuming, I turned my head away from the scene, my jaw clenching tightly. Will's eyes met mine in a questioning glance, but I merely smiled at him.

I'm going to offline that fragging glitch head of a Prime. Even if it is the last thing I do, I vowed.


End file.
